My search to find examples of social media at work in European politics wasn’t that fruitful – a blog here, a video there – except maybe for David Cameron and his ‘WebCameron’. Instead I stumbled across an interesting US example from CNN.com entitled Netroots activism arrives.

Netroots activism, as the name suggests, stems from a fusion of the terms ‘Internet’ and ‘Grassroots’ to reflect the new age technique of political participation. Coined in the United States, the term is used mainly in left-leaning circles.

Starting up a blog or subscribing to Facebook, is all good and well, especially if the material you post is sensationalist, but if it’s not and you want to create impact, there needs to be a strategy to push it through to the correct target audiences, as Forrester’s recent research on Social Technographics points out.

With tactics like a ‘blogswarm’ (I know! – who makes up these names?), which is a situation in which thousands of bloggers comment on the same subject at the same time; an issue or event can become the “hot topic” of the day in both the blogosphere and mainstream media and as a result, a strong source of influence.

A US Netroots event is actually taking place as I write and ends on the 5 August. It’s the YearlyKos Convention, a political convention, organized by readers and writers of Daily Kos, an influential American political blog. YearlyKos took place for the first time last year – this year the convention is entitled “Building a Netroots Nation”.

Sen. Hillary Clinton will be joining the Presidential Leadership Forum being held on Saturday August 4, along with Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama, Gov. Bill Richardson, and Sen. Christopher Dodd. It will be the first ever collaborative presidential forum with both a respected blogger and a leading member of the traditional media as moderators. You can get a chance to see the forum broadcast via CNN and C-Span.

YearlyKos will also have a Netroots gathering in the virtual world of Second Life, complete with live streaming video of key events, interactive breakout sessions, and exclusive Second Life-only sessions. Register for YKSL (YearlyKos Second Life) via the web or Second Life: www.yearlykosconvention.org/yksl.

Now all that remains is for the grass to properly take root over here in Europe. A good article reviewing the uptake of social media in politics – US vs. UK – is from an article in The Telegraph entitled Can I Depend on Your Click?; and another from The Guardian on how two political bloggers from the UK are turning to the US for tips on successful campaigning and fundraising strategies.

“Unity in Diversity” is the EU’s motto, although not of course officially. As it is true that to understand the EU we must at least occasionally look at what’s going on outside our Brussels Bubble, we thought we’d venture out into the light and commence our virtual Grand Tour of what’s going on out there in Member State land. This being the summer, as a first stop we followed the rest of Brussels and headed south to warmer climes in Italy.

First up, Corriere della Sera notes Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema’s venture into Second Life on July 6 on the island of Fondazione Italianieuropei. Unfortunately, D’Alema doesn’t seem to have quite got it, as he appeared only in pre-recorded video clip on the subject of biofuels rather than in virtual real life. No interaction and no chance to meet D’Alema in person, reports Corriere. All this is a pity, as the video was from a conference held in the European Parliament in Brussels a couple of weeks back on biofuels, where due to the fact that you needed an invite to attend you also would have struggled to meet D’Alema in the flesh.

Happily, we found a comedian who is using the internet for altogether more suitable purpose. Beppe Grillo is a controversial figure who used to appear on Italian TV despite for all intent and purposes appearing to be the opposite of female and attractive. (We are assured by Italians that it was his outspoken political views rather than his gender or perceived lack of beauty that got him removed from TV). He now uses his mulitlingual blog to take Italian politicians to task. He wants to gather the requisite number of signatures (50,000) to spark proposal for a popular law that would (1) prevent citizens that are convicted of a criminal offence standing for office (2) limit Parliamentarians to 2 terms in office (3) ensure that party election lists on an open rather than closed basis.

Beppe’s cunning plan involves shouting a large go forth and multiple on “Vaffa-Day“, 8 September , when supporters will be encouraged to go out onto the streets of Italy and tell their political elite to do exactly that by collecting signatures. In the run up to the event, supporters can join like minded people on MeetUp and submit supportive photos by Flickr.com

Fear not Brussels based Italians, there is a Brussels supporters group on MeetUp where you can join around 80 other exiled Beppe supporters. Beppe has over 75,000 people already signed up online, which apparently means he has already achieved the requisite number to put his proposal to Parliament. (Thanks to readers of this blog for pointing out that Beppe’s challenge is not that of a referendum, which requires a larger number of signatories). We shall watch with interest.

There’s more and more talk in mainstream media about Second Life (SL) and at the same time we see that many large businesses, as well as official institutions (such as the US Congress) have made efforts to ensure a SL presence. But is SL really being used in the realm of public affairs and activism?

Well, it seems it is… Once again, NGOs have been quick to embrace new ways of engaging people to take up their causes. Last night, Stella McCartney and PETA launched their anti-fur campaign (which runs until 29 July) exclusively via their Second Life island with a picnic and dance party with a “(second) live” DJ (and yes, all so-called avatars, i.e., your SL alter ego, were quite enthusiasticallly dancing with “Fur is not fair” signs – see above). (Incidentally, we didn’t find Stella).

The protest was open to any and all SL members and guests were invited to pick up a welcome pack that contained some instructions as well as a protest sign. Participant numbers probably only reached about 30 in the first few hours and many already seemed to know each other (from their first life, I suspect), which might explain why there were no active attempts to recruit or inform about the campaign or the cause. The focus instead seemed to be expressing support for the cause by dancing and just being there. Given the low turnout, one has to wonder whether the objective of the Second Life launch was to simply to secure a few more column inches due to the novelty of an SL campaign launch.

Clearly, an advantage of such a virtual protest and campaign for busy people is that the actual level of engagement required is quite small: all you need to do is teleport your avatar to the protest, make him or her dance and hold a sign and then you can get on with your first life job or favorite evening TV programme (depending on what time zone you are in)… but will this ever match the level of engagement of RL (real life) interaction?

Campaign press release and schedule can be found here

Unfortunately Margot struggled to make herself heard above MEPs filling the hemicycle for votes, so whether our MEPs will be motivated to reach out to voters on Second Life over the summer recess is still unclear. However, should the rain continue we may all have to find a virtual bit of sunshine in August.