New technological developments are spreading at an astonishing speed, and the European Parliament aims to keep up with the pace. The main pillars of this strategy are mobility, interoperatibility and connectivity for MEPs in their daily work. More and more ICT conveniences are used in digital communication with thein voters.
According to the Fleishman-Hillard's research the use of Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Digg is used by many MEPs for the communication with their voters. Despite some early adopters, the data shows that only a minority of MEPs have fully grasped the potential of using online technologies to help them engage meaningfully with their electorate. The vast majority of politicians in the European Parliament still use mass media techniques rather than the personal and participatory media of the future. However the direction of travel is clear from the data and when new MEPs take their seats later this year, it is likely that many more will start using online communication techniques which provide inexpensive and limitless ways to reach voters at relevant moments in the right context at the right time.
The survey also concludes that MEPs increasingly are using the Internet to inform their daily legislative work. Public affairs professionals in Brussels need to build digital communications into their public affairs strategies if they are to remain effective advocates for their organizations. The results show that MEPs are using search engine and Wikipedia results to inform their thinking on policy issues. It also concludes that those MEPs who use the Internet in their own communication are more likely to see the Internet as influential in their thinking on policy issues.
Other headline facts revealed by the study are:
• 75% of MEPs use a personal website extensively.
• 93% of MEPs use search engines on a daily basis to understand legislative issues.
• 51% of MEPs visit blogs once a week or more.
• MEPs who are active online are more inclined to rate the internet as crucial to helping them form policy positions than those who are less active.
• 33% of MEPs believe online advertising to be either very effective or effective way to communicate to voters compared to 57% for television advertising.
The MEP Peter Slovak and his assistants use Informationcommunication technologies very often in thein everyday work. They have created thein own blog - http://mep-peter-slovak-ep-for-youth.blogspot.com/
They inform their voters and all the people interested in European issues via their blog about thei activities, they have organized several videoconferences with the public and also have written a big amount of email responses to their voters. They also use You Tube web site to show their contributions during the sessions in the European Parliament. You can see one of the speeches of Matúš Kotora the assistant of the MEP in the EP in Strasbourg in January 2011 at this address - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAe7VbZauaA (minute 2:44).
To conclude, the Internet and the ICT helps to contact the MEPs and their voters and enables their better cooperation, The life of the MEPs without the ICTand the Internet is not possible to imagine nowadyas, it plays an important role in MEPs practice.
Sources:
http://www.focus-fen.net/?id=f1861
http://www.euractiv.com/en/pa/meps-twitter-their-way-new-communication-news-499873
http://internet-politics.cies.iscte.pt/IMG/pdf/ECPR2009braghiroli.pdf
http://aei.pitt.edu/30043/
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