... engagement. The interactive, open and free nature of social networking sites contributes to their development as a new type of political podia that allow politicians to produce a different kind of political communication. Instead of using these sites as platforms to disseminate their ideas, plans...

...Yeon‐Ok Lee; Han Woo Park Purpose South Korea imposes more stringent restrictions on political speeches during elections than many other democratic countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine the long‐standing conflict between citizens and institutions in the Korean electoral environment...

... to systematically catalogue the information politicians disclosed about themselves and to uncover political themes that were featured. A total of 12 politicians who blogged on this platform were subsequently interviewed about their online activities. Findings The councillors used the Read My Day platform...

...Barrie Gunter; Maria Touri Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer greater insight in the role of blogs in the creation of a more transparent news media system and a more democratic political reality. Design/methodology/approach Framing theory is employed as a conceptual tool to re...

...Barrie Gunter; Vincent Campbell Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the rhetoric and reality of the impact of political blogs in the specific context of American politics, where online, mainstream media and academic accounts suggest blogs have had significant impacts on political...

... and politics of the homeland and continue to interest, involve, bring together and divide Somalis world‐wide. Design/methodology/approach Web sites were divided into categories, and a study of the community/political category was conducted. Visits were made to the Horn of Africa and elsewhere, and face...

... for a number of years. In recent years, British society, disillusioned with politics, has demonstrated a general decline in political engagement, with election turnouts often very low. At the same time, there has been a massive expansion in media available to the general public, including the world wide web...

...Nigel Jackson Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of weblogs by political parties in the 2005 general election campaign. It seeks to identify why, why not, and how parties used their weblogs during the election campaign. Design/methodology/approach The weblogs of the five...

...Caroline Auty; Richard Rogers Purpose To suggest methods and approaches to the study of relationships between the blogsphere and news, and to show, through a preliminary study, how the blogsphere makes particular political contributions through the manner in which social issues are discussed...

... Provides a useful first structured analysis of weblogs written by elected representatives, on which further work can be undertaken once the sample size has increased and existing blogs are more established. Use of the internet by political players is now a well documented and researched topic. Studies...

...Nigel Jackson Members of Parliament (MPs) want to communicate their ideas, messages and activities to their constituents. Within the modern political campaigning era the central party organisation has dominated most political communication through its control of national media management...

... attacks. Some of these methods are extremely effective, being cheap to use and requiring limited technical ability. Others err on the wrong side of the law and involve full‐scale hacking. Overall, hacktivism can be a productive part of the political process. The principal aim of this study...

...Eti Herman This paper examines the websites of 11 political parties in the run up to the general election of 7th June 2001, to determine whether parties have got to grips with the Internet as a medium for information delivery and campaigning. The websites of all the parties were analysed...