Political Parties, Nationalism and Web 2.0 in European Contexts

Abstract

Scholars such as Margolis and Resnick (2000) and Hindman (2009) suggest that online speech continues to follow winner-takes-all patterns that strengthen the position of political elites and leave little or no impact upon ‘politics as usual.’ Much of the literature in the study of online politics to date has tended to focus on political parties and in particular the functionality of their websites and online platforms (Gibson et al, 2003) and the impact of their online communication strategies upon voting behaviour (Gibson and McAllister, 2008; Sudulich and Wall, 2010). This panel seeks to provide new empirical evidence to inform these debates via an examination of how nationalism is communicated in the Web 2.0 universe in a number of European contexts where nationalist parties remain prominent in the political system, but are unlikely to achieve the electoral support necessary in order to form a ruling government. The panel sets out to compare and contrast the online communication strategies of parties in these contexts, with a particular focus on the role of user-generated platforms such as social networking sites in their political campaigns. In doing so, these papers will contribute towards a greater understanding of what impact, if any, Web 2.0 has had upon nationalist movements in four very different media systems, from the neo-Soviet Russian model to the Liberal North Atlantic model in the Republic of Ireland (Hallin and Mancini, 2004; Oates, 2008).

Title	Details
The Effect of Democratic Discourse in Non-Democratic States: When Global Communicative Potential Meets National Constraints in Russia	View Paper Details
Web 2.0 and the Emergence of New Ethno-Nationalist Parties in Spain	View Paper Details
The Internet’s Double Edge: Increasing Mobilisation and Fragmentation in the Catalan Pro-Independence Movement	View Paper Details
A Bridge to the Future? Sinn Féin’s Online Campaign for the 2011 Irish General Election	View Paper Details
Ukrainian Presidency Meets Politics 2.0	View Paper Details
Norwegian Nationalist Parties on Web 2.0	View Paper Details