German Politicians Pep Up Their Online Presence

Modeled to a great extent on British and American trend-setters, German politicians are pepping up their Internet presence like never before. The September federal elections have motivated many individual candidates as well as the major parties to put a new face online.

“The Internet presence of the parties has become much more professional since the last federal elections,” Christoph Bieber, political scientist at the Institute for Media and Interactivity at the University of Giessen, told the business newspaper Handelsblatt. “They have even developed special campaign forms that only take place online.”

This focus on online campaigning has its basis in statistics: some 40 million Germans, nearly half the country’s population, have Internet access. Plus Internet surfers – many of them young, single and well-educated – are an attractive target group.

Looking for support online

Both of the major parties have started recruiting election volunters online. “This is a first in Germany,” said Bieber. So far it appears to be working – hundreds of supporters have already checked in vie email. And once on the major political party sites, it's possible for Internet surfers to become a party member and make financial contributions.

Many of the features on the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) sites are modeled after U.S. and British sites. Like the “rapid response” model used by some American politicians, the CDU, for instance, uses its www.wahlfakten.de (election facts) as a site to quickly respond to statements by the opposition.

The SPD, meanwhile, has turned to negative campaigning with its www.nicht-regierungsfaehig.de (not capable of governing) where it tries to use humor to counter statements from its opponents.

Still, despite the many new sites and relaunches appearing in the past six months, Bieber said there remains room for improvement. Indeed, only the SPD and CDU party sites offer a sophistication long associated with websites in the English-speaking world. And only these two top parties include English-content on their sites.

Study finds SPD site the best among the parties

A recent study by the Profnet Institute for Internet Marketing in Dortmund, commissioned by the magazine Capital, found that the SPD had the best political website. The study considered layout, content and ease of use, and rated the sites on a scale of 1 to 100.

The SPD, with 80 points, scored better than many German companies did on a similar test, where the average firm scored 36 points.

“Successful communication on the Net means more than having a chic website,” said Dietrich Boelter, head of Profnet.

The two 'chicest' sites of all must belong to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his opponent, Edmund Stoiber. Both feature slick photos and presentations of personal and political histories.

On Schröder’s site, each day the face of another prominent supporter – athletes, actors and other public personas are among them – is added to the list of supporters with a quote from the person about why they like Schröder.

Stoiber, meanwhile, includes a section on his “big love”, his wife of 34 years. This is one topic Schröder, who is on his fouth marriage, avoids.