Open Source Campaigning in the UK.pdf

8/14/2019 Open Source Campaigning in the UK.pdf

1/28Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1723329

Open Source Campaigning?: UK Party Organisations and the Use of the New Media in

the 2010 General Election1

Rachel K. GibsonInstitute for Social Change, University of Manchester

Email:[email protected]

Paper prepared for presentation at the Annual meeting of the American Political ScienceAssociation, 2010 Washington DC

Abstract: This paper examines efforts by UK parties to use new social media tools tomobilize members and wider supporters in the 2010 General election. It focuses on fiveparties specifically Labour, the Conservatives, the LibDems, the Scottish NationalistParty and the British National Party each of which, set up separate campaign hubs onthe web for non-members to join, network and most importantly undertake action forthe party. The introduction of these campaign hub sites is seen as an importantdevelopment in party politics in terms of the potential they hold for restructuring themanagement of campaigns, particularly with regard to shifting power to volunteers and

non-members. The paper investigates the extent to which the sites promoted greatergrassroots involvement and autonomy within UK parties campaign managementpractices. It does so by first articulating the concept of citizen-campaigning, a newweb-enabled mode of activism that engages non-elites/non-members with thecampaign in a co-producer role. A coding scheme (derived from U.S. campaign efforts in2008) is devised to measure and compare the extent of citizen-campaigning madepossible through the party sites. This is based around five core campaign functions andmeasures the extent to which they are party or citizen-controlled. Conclusions aredrawn about the extent to which the sites represented a genuine opening up anddevolution of power out to supporters.

Draft version: Please do not circulate without author permission.

1This research presented in this paper is funded by an UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Fellowship The Internet, Electoral Politics and Citizen Participation in Global PerspectiveRES-051-27-0299
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


2/28Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1723329

Introduction

The establishment of the MyBarackObama.com or MyBO site in early 2007 introduceda new and innovative twist to online campaigning that quickly came to be seen as oneof the defining features of a highly successful web strategy. The site offered a widerange of web 2.0 type functionality such as personal blogging, social networking, video

and photo sharing that moved campaign web offerings forward from the largely staticbrochureware style that had predominated in the web 1.0 era. Beyond innovations incontent, however, the incorporation of these user-driven elements within a party orcandidate controlled space represented a deeper structural shift in the process ofcampaign management. New possibilities were opened up for the casually interestedcitizen with only limited previous involvement in campaigning to play an active role inorchestrating local level canvassing and contacting of voters. Users could register toaccess databases that would provide them with names and addresses of likely or leaningDemocrats in their neighborhood that they could visit or call. People could downloadtools that allowed them fundraise on Obamas behalf or target sms messages to friendsand family, reminding them to vote for the candidate on election day. By most accounts,these efforts did yield a significant return to the campaign. Over one million peoplesigned up to the site, thousands of events were planned using its tools, and supportersusing it collected around $35 million in donations, or around six percent of the final totalraised.2

Fast forward to the UK General Election of 2010 and we see that several of theBritish parties launched (or re-launched) their own versions of this web 2.0 activist-oriented site in the year prior to the election. This included all three major parties, eachof which operated a site separate to their main site, hosted under an independent URL

and name. - Labours Membersnet, MyConservatives.com (MyCons), and Lib Dem Act(LDA). Labour had a further standalone site of relevance LabourSpace (LS) thatoffered additional activist tools and that was included in the analysis. Two of the minorparties the Scottish National Party (SNP) and British National Party (BNP) establishedsimilar initiatives, although these were operated from within their main sites andaccessed via the main menu.While MyCon showed the strongest similarity to MyBO interms of its name, overall design and key features such as a personalised dashboard,the other sites clearly presented replications of core aspects of the Obama original.

In addition to the MyBO site, there were of course a range of other more socialmedia based initiatives that the campaign made use of to promote self-organising bysupporters.

Beyond these surface-level similarities, however, to what extent did these sitesactually promote the more devolved citizen-led forms of activism observed in their U.S.

counterpart? This is the core question posed in this paper. It is addressed by developingand applying measures of this new type of web campaigning (based on the Obamamodel) to the five UK campaign activist sites. In particular, we break down site contentinto four distinct areas of campaign practice and assess the extent to which theyallowed for citizen input and involvement. As well as seeking to update and expand ourmeasurement of web campaigning in the social media era, therefore, the paper provides

2See Vargas, J. A. Obamas Wide Web Washington Post.com20/08/08


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a point of departure for wider speculation about how parties use of the internet, andparticularly web 2.0 may be affecting their organsiational approach to electioncampaigns. That is to say, whether it is challenging the top-down, centrally directed andprofessionalized approach to voter communication and contact that has been identifiedas increasing trend in UK elections and elsewhere (Fisher and Denver, 2008; Norris,

2000). In addressing these questions, therefore, we also link into wider debates aboutthe ongoing structural changes in the nature political campaigning in the UK, and theextent to which the web may be seen as accelerating or countering the current directionof travel? Arguments about an increasing professionalization of political campaigningwould on the one hand suggest that parties are becoming may be becoming morecentralized in their approach to election management. However, most accounts dorecognize that the digital media provides some possible challenge to this in promotingmore participatory grassroots involvement and a localized presence for individualcandidates.

The question of how any far web 2.0-induced decentralization may be occurringin the conduct of national election campaigns can be understood in two ways: (1) first,externally there is the practical matter of campaigning itself and the tools that are beingused by practitioners offline and online, how far do they promote new types of activitythat allow individuals to detach or remove themselves from party control?; (2) secondlyinternally, how far is the web actually restructuring parties from within?; that is movingdecision-making or some type of authoritative allocation of value/resources from oneset of actors to another, particularly across levels of the party hierarchy; makingpossible the development of a new network model of campaign organization? Both ofthese levels or arenas of change are important to examine and are inter-related.However, in this paper we will be concerned primarily with the former and more directlyobservable arena within the UK party system. Where possible, and using evidence

becoming available from insider accounts in the U.S. campaign we also seek to addressthe second question and to reflect on the wider impact of these new campaign tools forpower redistribution within the parties..

The Internet and Election Campaigning

In order to address our central question of the extent to which parties use of theinternet and particularly web 2.0 or social media technology is having a transformativeeffect on party campaign organization and management, specifically in terms ofdecentralizing and opening the process up, we first examine the wider theoreticaldebate surrounding the impact of new ICTs on party and campaign change. We then

seek to trace the extent of any practical changes and empirical effects are beingobserved, which has been the focus of the more recent new media and politicsscholarship.

Campaign change: taking the Long View

The systematic study of political campaigns has increased markedly across the past twodecades. Although always considered relevant for understanding party and widerelectoral change Lazarsfeld et al. (1948) Kircheimer (1966), Epstein (1967), Rose (1967)


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Panebianco (1986) it was really the work of Bowler and Farrell (1992) and Butler andRanney (1992) that signalled the start of a more explicit focus on campaigns role inpromoting political change and how they operated. While accepting country specificdivergence and differentiation, scholarship quite quickly converged on an understandingthat election campaigning had reached a third stage or era of development, whereby

campaigns were seen as becoming highly technology-dependent but also more nichedin their appeal developments summed up by Schmitt-Beck and Farrell (2003) in theirdescription of the rise of, a new style of campaigning defined as stage 3. 3

A key focus for these scholars was the emergence new style of communicationwith voters and an orientation to the electorate that was both more personalised andprofessionalised in approach. Parties and candidates were seen as using a range of newmarketing techniques that took a more interactive approach to selling their policies tovoters, rather than simply assuming preferences in advance. This new style differedsharply from the one size fits all logic that had dominated in the television era, a shiftneatly summed up by Douglas Alexander, the manager of the UK Labour 2001 campaign,who commented post-election that the days of the centralized election campaign wereover and marketing techniques that saw the electorate as an homogenized mass wereto be dispensed with in favor of more differentiated and individualized messages.Parties needed to find new ways to communicate directly with voters in the future.

In doing sothey developed and further articulated the work of Mancini and Swanson, 1996; Norris,2000; Plasser, 2000; Negrine and Papathanassopoulos (1996); Blumler and Kavanagh(1999), that had charted these global shifts in campaign style and orgnanisation.

4

Although some acknowledgement was given to the more participatory andinteractive properties of the new digital applications, their democratising impact onparties campaign management and organization was not something that was widelydiscussed. Part of this omission may have arisen from perceptions about the capabilitiesof the technology itself. Through to the middle of the first decade of the newmillennium the most popular new media applications email and websites were

characterized as web 1.0 in orientation. Meaning that they functioned in a largelystatic and top-down format (Gibson et al, 2003a). The growth in use of the nextgeneration of user-driven, collaborative and interactive web 2.0 tools such as blogs,Facebook groups, and online video were can be seen to present important new

To deliver this more nuanced and niched message, parties clearly had to rely on a set ofnew tools. Direct mail and telemarketing powered by extensive national voterdatabases, supplemented with commercial and survey data were the keys to makingthis happen, by allowing a new type of micro-targeting. The arrival of new ICTs in the

form of email, websites and text messaging was thus interpreted by this literaturelargely in terms of its potential for accelerating and supporting existing trends toward amore segmented and modular approach to message development and votercommunication.

3see Table 1.1: 10-11

4Politics must change or die, says minister. By Patrick Wintour. 08/02/02 Available at:

Accessed on 30/12/08.


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opportunities for a more genuinely bottom-up, grassroots approach to campaignorganization. Below we discuss the extent to which these developments are beingrealized within the Uk and wider international electoral scene.

Online campaigning and internal party change

While the wider campaigns literature did not seize on organizational decentralizationand new networking possibilities as a key impact of the new media for parties, suchdevelopments were discussed to a degree within the politics and new ICTs literature.The focus of the speculation was largely on parties and organizations writ large ratherthan campaign management per seand a number of scholars outlined visions of newnetworked and decentralised forms of organization that offered a greater voice to themembers and grass roots activists (Bimber, 1998; Pickerill, 2003; Lofgren and Smith,2003; Margetts 2006). Accounts focused on the use of new ICTs to promote greateraccountability of elites, wider opportunities for internal groups to network and self-organise independently of national leaders. Also, there was attention given to theopportunities new ICTs offered to build less formal and more flexible ties betweenindividuals and parties that would see membership dues and meetings replaced bymore engagement with the party on particular issues of interest through policyconsultations. Empirical investigation of the organisational impact of new ICTs wasrelatively limited, although what was produced provided little evidence to suggest anydramatic moves toward the new decentralized cyber party were underway. Surveysconducted in the UK and Norway of party members reported that those joining onlineactually tended to be more passive, using the technology for informational rather thannetworking purposes and were less socialised into party structures, having weaker tiesto the party as a whole. By contrast, members who were active in using the new ICTsinternally tended to be more educated and already active suggesting a reinforcement

rather than restructuring effect of new ICTs on existing party power structures (Wardand Lusoli, 2002; Lusoli et al, 2003; Pedersen and Saglie 2005).

As with the campaigns literature, however, much of the academic study of newICT induced change was conducted in the pre-Web 2.0 era. Many parties now haveintranets, have conducted online consultation exercises and use email regularly tocreate online and maintain networks of supporters friends rather than members. Inparticular, the online campaigns of Democrat candidates Howard Dean and BarackObama were seen to dramatically lift the bar in terms of the opportunities forpresidential campaigns to interact with, and increase participation levels among theirsupporters. Starting with Deans Blog for America and continuing through to the

customized MyBo site of the Obama team, the focus was on using the Web to getordinary supporters actively involved and contributing to the campaign by blogging,raising funds, and canvassing via SMS for the candidates were wide ranging. (Trippi,2004). Taking these more recent examples as points of departure then, we re-explore inbrief the question of whether internet-based campaigns may be inducing structuralchanges to parties operation such that new and more networked model is emerging?

From Howard Dean and Barack Obama: the rise of the citizen-campaigner


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Joe Trippi, Howard Deans campaign manager in the Democratic Presidential primaryelections of 2004, has proved a highly vocal advocate of the idea that new mediapromote a radically new open source approach and grassroots driven basis tocampaigning. One of the core elements of his democratized online strategy centered onthe use of Meetup.com, which was crucial in building the local organisational

infrastructure and independent teams that the Dean camp relied on (Trippi, 2004; Cone,2007). Once a month thousands of self-organised Dean supporters would meet at coffeeshops to discuss their candidate and how they could help to raise awareness locally andmobilize support (Lizza, 2003). And while the campaign at first took control ofappointing coordinators via email or phone, the bottle necks in communication that thisproduced meant that by late 2003 the campaign switched to an automated web-basedsystem that took the selection and management of Meetup coordinators out of thehands of the campaign. Supporters self-nominated to coordinate a meetup andresponsibility rested in their hands. Other than monthly conference calls with Trippi andsome sample agendas, ultimately what happens is up to them Over time the self-organising bug spread with Dean supporters organising themselves into unofficialgroups such as a Dean Media Team that web-streamed Dean speeches, and the onlineDean Defence Force that combated negative ads and reports in the media. Its peer-to-peer politics voters connecting to other voters without the middleman of officialcampaigns sanction. (Suellentrop, 2003).

In adopting this open source model of campaigning, Dean was seen as havingintroduced a radically different approach to previous modes of Presidential campaigns.What he and his team recognized, as Cone (2003) insightfully pointed out was that adefining feature of an Internet campaign is that the campaigning is done for you andthat it is not possible to control it, nor should parties or the candidate want to. Thisfundamentally challenged the central ethos of Presidential campaigning that top down

control of the message and operation as a whole is essential, the way the game isplayed. Of course the strategy was not without its downsides. In harnessing theindependent energies of ones supporters there is the chance that they will go offmessage and even counter what the candidate or party is saying (Suellentrop, 2003)There is also the possibility of the newly minted local organizers losing sight of the basicgoal of getting out the vote, and instead becoming caught up with the process. Or asone observer of the 2004 campaign put it, Local Dean groups [were] not obsessed withpassing their messages to the candidate. They [were] busy talking among themselves.(Wolf, 2004).

The migration of a number of Deans key ecampaign staff into the Obama

machine meant that the 2008 campaign did have echoes of the 2004 effort. However,lessons were also learned with regard to the balance between bottom-up and top-downcontrol. In particular, the need to keep supporters focused on the goal of votermobilization and impose some degree of control or at least an understanding of whatwas happening within the various supporter-led local networks was evident.5

5Exley, A. The New Organizers, Whats really behind Obamas ground game 08/10/08

A complexand ultimately quite traditional hierarchical management structure emerged in advance


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of the election, whereby central HQ in Chicago kept a constant and closecommunication channel open with its activists via online and also offline methods.Volunteers had training and reporting requirements with up to 2,500 paid FieldOrganisers (FO), Field and State Directors monitoring their progress and activities. 6Atits height, estimates of the size of the central internet team ranged from about 80 to 90

paid staff, with volunteers doubling the size.7

Thus although a considerable degree oflatitude given to local team leaders in how to recruit help and approach voters as TheWashingtonPost noted they were hardly freelancers.8

While the internal structure of Obamas ecampaign appeared to have undergonea considerable tightening and centralization compared with Dean approach, on the toolsside, efforts were focused on extending the range of applications beyond blogs andMeetups to allow for the type of self-organised citizen-campaigning that Dean hadbegun to harness. At the core of, and symbolizing these efforts, was the MyBO site.Launched in February 2007, my.barackoboma.com (referred to internally as MyBO) wasat the heart of the campaigns new media strategy according to numerous reports. Thesite, developed by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, constituted a digital hub wheresupporters could go to create events, exchange information, connect with othersupporters in their area, raise funds, and sign up to help with GOTV efforts emphasiswas on promoting local level activism. Once supporters had registered (requiring only anemail address and password) they were immediately offered opportunities via theAction Center pages to campaign on behalf of Obama along a sliding scale ofinvolvement. Options ranged from volunteering to help with voter registration drives orhelping with a local fundraiser to engaging in the actual contact and canvassing of votersthrough phone calls and knocking on doors. These latter two options were supported byone of the most innovative features of the campaign the Neighbor to Neighbor (N2N)database which used registered users zip codes to produce a list of phone numbers

and addresses of independent voters to call or visit. Interactive scripts on how toconduct the conversation were available and record sheets to keep track of responsescould be downloaded. Contact was generally linked to a particular goal or specificcampaign in a given state, although close to polling day it was used to get out the vote.Examples included a Womens Day one-day calling campaign in 2008 in which womensupporters were invited to use the virtual phonebank to reach out and talk to otherwomen about issues that mattered to them in the campaign. For the moreentrepreneurial supporters it was possible to use MyBO to create a personal fundraisingpage that could promoted externally and to friends and family. Overall the site was seenas a successful investment by the campaign measured in terms of a range of metrics:

over $35 million raised via 70,000 personal fundraising pages; more than 200,000 eventsorganized and over 35,000 groups created (Harfoush, 2009: 74).Thus, on the one hand tools like MyBO and N2N clearly followed the Dean model

6Stirland, Sarah L. Obamas Secret Weapons: Internet Database and Psychology Wired blog 29/10/08.

7See Vargas, J. A Politics is No Longer Local. Its Viral WashingtonPost.com 28/12/08: B01; DiJulio and

Wood (2008)8MacGills, A. Obama Camp Relying Heavily on Ground Effort WashingtonPost.com 12/10/08


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of a more franchised and devolved campaign structure, breaking down the boundariesbetween the professional staffers and supporters, and giving the latter a considerabledegree of autonomy. However, crucial differences existed between the two in terms ofthe extent of central oversight of these local efforts. First, an extensive physicalinfrastructure was built up that surrounded the volunteers efforts to ensure they kept

on track and met their targets. More significantly, however, the MyBO model providedfor the Meetup, blogging and social networking needs of supporters, but did so within acampaign-controlled space. While this didnt preclude people using other tools such asMeetup and personal blogs, once a critical mass of users and groups had been built upon MyBO it became an obvious target for those wanting to help the campaign. Oncesigned up, the campaign could then build a relationship with these individuals and moreimportantly spur them on to recruit others into the election effort.

Defining Citizen-Campaigning

The above overview has argued that the distinctive feature of the Obama 2008 e-campaign and indeed web campaigning more generally as we move further into theWeb 2.0 era is its use to promote a new form of citizen activism - citizen-campaigning.Here a range of online tools are developed by the parties and candidates to allowordinary or non-official members/party staff to carry out core campaign activities onbehalf of the candidate. Access to the tools is provided via a dedicated campaign hub orarea within the main site requiring registration of the user, typically via provision ofemail contact details at minimum. In placing an emphasis on this new form ofcollaborative campaigning it should be made clear that we do not seek to de-value otheraspects of innovation and change in social media use that were apparent during the2008 election cycle. MyBO did not operate in isolation. There were many other facets toObamas online campaign including his blog, extensive use of email and text messaging,

multiple YouTube uploads plus a dedicated video channel (Barack.TV), and profiles onFacebook and 15 other social network sites. The audience for many of these initiativeswas enormous and dwarfed that of MyBO.9In addition, they contained innovative waysto involve supporters, such as the Facebook application that helped users identify tofriends in early primary and caucus states and send messages to encourage them tovote). However, it is contended here that their modus operandi conformed much moreto the top-down approach to campaign management characteristic of the modern era,whereby message content and distribution is controlled by the central campaign HQ.MyBO and N2N (and also the late-comer iPhone application10

9Obamas email list was estimated to stand at 13 million subscribers at the conclusion of the campaign,he had 5 million friends across 15 SNSLearning from Obama: Lessons for Online Communicators in 2009and Beyond.Part One e.politics.comFeb 23, 2009

), by contrast while not

http://www.epolitics.com/2009/02/23/learning-from-obama-lessons-for-online-communicators-for-2009-and-beyond.Accessed Dec 6 2010. His More PerfectUnion Video was watched by reaching over 1.3 million views on YouTube within a day of the speech'sdelivery National Public Radio The Viral Obama Web Cycle March 19, 2008.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88584840Accessed 6 Dec 2010.10

The iPhone application was developed in the last month of the General election campaign. It differed tothe virtual phonebook in that rather than cold calling it utilised users own address books to send
http://www.epolitics.com/2009/02/23/learning-from-obama-lessons-for-online-communicators-for-2009-and-beyondhttp://www.epolitics.com/2009/02/23/learning-from-obama-lessons-for-online-communicators-for-2009-and-beyondhttp://www.epolitics.com/2009/02/23/learning-from-obama-lessons-for-online-communicators-for-2009-and-beyondhttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88584840http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88584840http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88584840http://www.epolitics.com/2009/02/23/learning-from-obama-lessons-for-online-communicators-for-2009-and-beyondhttp://www.epolitics.com/2009/02/23/learning-from-obama-lessons-for-online-communicators-for-2009-and-beyond


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putting ordinary supporters in the driving seat, extended a degree of tactical autonomyand local decision-making on the campaigns behalf over a range of core campaignactivities such as recruiting and developing local teams, raising funds, getting out thevote, and helping to distribute and even to some extent create the campaign message.As such, we argue, they represented the first attempt by parties to meaningfully exploit

the user-generated element of Web 2.0 era technologiesAs well as documenting this shift in web campaigns focus, the central question this

paper seeks to address is the extent to which this new approach to Web campaigningcan be observed outside the U.S. in other recent democratic elections. In particular wefocus on the UK General election of 2010 which saw several senior party personneltravel to the U.S. to observe the innovations taking place online and gather intelligencethat would feed directly into their homegrown campaigns (Crabtree, 2010).

Operationalizing Citizen-Campaigning

In order to address this question it is necessary to operationally define the activity ofcitizen-campaigning. Based on the analysis of the Dean and Obama campaigns, as wellas the wider campaigns literature, we identify several core activities that are seenconstituting or supporting this new type of shared or devolved campaign management.These are (1) community building/networking; (2) internal resource mobilization; (3)external mass and elite mobilization; (4) message creation; and (5) message distribution.Below we outline these core functions and specifically how online tools can be used topromote citizen involvement in their operation. .

Community Building/Networking: This activity, while not active campaigning in terms ofgetting out the vote is seen as a key support to building the citizen-campaign network.Creating a sense of community according to insider reports was a key motivation behind

the creation of the MyBO site, both in terms of connecting volunteers to one anotherbut also connecting them to the campaign team. Users were offered extensive onlinesupport via videos and a downloadable host guide. More personally, local area staffphoned members regularly to keep them informed about the range of ways they couldhelp and ask about how recently organized events or canvassing efforts had gone. Thiscommunity element no doubt was inspired by the presence of Chris Hughes, thefounder of FaceBook, who brought his extensive experience of building this type ofonline social capital direct to the creation of MyBO in early 2007. Typical featuresincluded being able to build a profile, upload personal photographs, and explain whyyou were supporting the candidate. In addition, joining or starting groups was

encouraged as was setting up a blog within the site and using an internal messaging oremail system.

Internal Mobilization: This activity refers to the use of the new media tools by registered

messages to friends and family in swing states reminding them to vote. It also allowed users to make callsand log information with the campaign on likely supporters for follow-up calls by staff. Overall 95,000applications were downloaded, just over 11,000 people made calls (Harfoush, 2009: 120).


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supporters to generate further resources for the campaign effort. This could includerecruitment of new members and/or volunteers and the generation of funds. It couldalso involve facilities for interested individuals to sign up to work as local organizers orfill key offices within the organization. Finally, it could involve signing up to attend localor national events as well as requesting visits by the local candidate or leading party

political figures.

External Mobilization: This activity really constitutes the primary emphasis of citizen-campaigning. Here online tools are focused on ways in which voters could take action onbehalf of the party or candidate specifically to get out the vote. Typically efforts wouldbe aimed at encouraging individuals to persuade friends, family and others in theircommunity to vote for the candidate via both offline and online means. For the former,options can range from simply signing up or pledging to talk to others about thecandidate to more sophisticated techniques such as downloading canvassing contactlists and accessing a virtual phone banks to target the GOTV efforts. More collectiveoptions to galvanise others in support of the candidate could include creating an eventand promoting it to others externally. Online mobilization efforts would involveproviding easy ways for people to post supportive messages on their external accountssuch as Facebook or Twitter or smart phone applications that would send out GOTVmessages to contacts.

Message Production and Distribution: Here efforts are directed toward enablingsupporters to generate the campaigns substantive message (i.e. policy focus) and in thedelivery of that message.. On the production side this could involve at one extreme thecrowdsourcing of policy documents such as the manifesto and providing individuals withthe means to create posters, leaftets and emails outlining the parties message, rather

than simply downloading or forwarding pre-packaged templates. In terms ofdistribution, this would center on facilitating the offline and online sharing or circulatingof policy related material and fostering wider online and offline discussion to the widerelectorate. This could include buttons that allow for the sharing or emailing of themanifesto, setting up a direct news feed from the campaign site to ones own blog, SNSprofile or Twitter account, or sharing party blog posts. Simple tools such as widgets toembed party logos and banners into ones own pages would also be a more generalmeans that supporters could reinforce the message.

Data and Methods

Having identified the core areas and types of activity that comprise this new mode ofcampaigning we move to assess the extent to which it was practiced in the UK Generalelection. This was done by first identifying the campaign hub sites among the partiesand developing and applying of a range of coding indices to capture a) the extent towhich these functions were being performed and b) more importantly, how far theywere performed by the party or supporters.

The cases for analysis: UK parties campaign activist sites


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Five parties were identified as operating some type of campaign hub sites in the modelof MyBO.com in the 2010 election. Specifically this meant they operated a site that wasopen to both members and non-members that required individuals to sign up andregister to enter with an email address. Once accessed, the site offered individuals arange of ways (online and/or offline) to connect with others signed up to the service and

to take action to help the party in its campaign. According to this criteria five partieswere included in the analysis The Conservatives, Labour, The Liberal Democrats, TheSNP and the BNP.

The three main parties operated their hubs as standalone platforms. These wereMyConservatives (MyCons), Labours Membersnet (Mnet) and LibDemAct (LDA). Thetwo minor parties ran their campaign hubs internally as sub-sites within their main partyhome pages. A brief history of the sites origins reveals that Mnet as enjoying thelongest life span, having been established in 2006 (as the name suggests) as a members-only tool. It was then opened to non-members in the MyBO style in 2009. MyCons wasestablished in August 2009, nine months prior to the election to coincide with the partyconference. The Liberal Democrats effort, LDA, also surfaced in late 2009. Given that thetwo minor party sites were nested within their main website, it was not immediatelyclear how long they had been in operation. However, the volume of election-relatedcontent within the BNP site was substantial. An archived version of the BNP site fromJuly 2009 revealed that it did not have the Social Network button on its main menu(seehttp://www.webarchive.org.uk/)suggesting that it had come on stream in the year,prior to the election. An archived SNP site from June 2009 by contrast did show a loginfacility for supporters and a side menu, indicating that access to their e-activist toolswas available at least a year before the election.

While the main focus of the analysis is upon these five sites, closer investigation of theparty offerings revealed that some expansion of the dataset was necessary to ensure fullcoverage of their citizen-campaign efforts. All the parties were found to haveundertaken one or more of the five functions within their own home pages, rather thanon the campaign hub sites. In addition one further standalone activist site run by theLabour party - LabourSpace.org was found (see figure 6). Established in early 2008 thesite was not election specific or open to members only but formed part of the partyswider ongoing online public policy consultation initiative Lets Talk.. The site providedinterested individuals, NGOs, and local parties tools to set up e-campaigns addressingthe Lets Talk themes and promote them virally and offline to others. The most popular

(judged through votes by online users at strategic points) were then taken forwardwithin the policy making process. While the spreading of the content analysis acrossmultiple sites made the coding somewhat less coherent and the reporting morecomplex, it was felt that incorporation of this material was important in order to fullyassess and compare the parties commitment to this new devolved mode ofcampaigning. While this extra content was considered in the coding process, its role wasreduced compared with the five campaign hub sites in assigning final scores (see belowand results tables for more detail on the precise adjustments made.)
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/http://www.webarchive.org.uk/http://www.webarchive.org.uk/http://www.webarchive.org.uk/


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Building the indices

Once the sites had been identified they were analysed for the extent to which theypromoted the open source style of campaigning that characterized MyBO. To do this, aseries of indices were generated up that tapped into the five core functions specified

above. This allowed for comparison of the extent to which these functions wereperformed across the sites and also more importantly, how open they were to citizeninput.

Functional indices to measure website content have been widely used in the analysis ofcandidate and party web campaigns (Gibson and Ward, 2000; Gibson et al. 2003b). Theyinvolve the mapping of web content or features (Foot and Schneider 2002) onto a scale

generally additive or ordinal that captures the extent to which the function is beingperformed. Common examples include assigning binary codes to the presence orabsence of various factual items on a site such as party histories, politician biographiesand press releases and then summing these to an overall score. In most cases the scalesused here are additive, although in some instances ordinal scales were moreappropriate. As noted above, the coding scheme used here also needed to take accountof the fact that content relating to the various functions was located on the main site inaddition to the bespoke campaign sites. To adjust for this a system of full and partialcredit was developed to reward those parties that had consolidated and fully developedtheir campaign sites (see section below for details). While voters may be able toundertake the range of activities measured through these indices, the failure to locatethem all in one place(as happened with MyBO) was seen to reduce their effectiveness.

The indices were developed in an iterative manner being derived firstfrom specific features observed on the MyBO site, but then adapted to suit the UK

campaign sites where any new features emerged. In this case, a series of sub-functionswere identified that broke down and further articulated the rationale of the five mainfunctions being investigated. The full listing of the scales, whether ordinal or additiveand individual items used to build them are listed in the result tables. Below we outlinebriefly the key sub-functions studied.

Community building comprised activities that were directed toward networking andconnecting members of the site to one another and the campaign. The sub-functionsidentified were: building a profile; joining/starting a group; establishing a blog; havingan email/messaging system; a wiki or collaborative workspace.

Internal mobilization was divided into a series of facilities that allowed individuals tobecome involved in: fund-raising; membership promotion; volunteering; recruitmentinto elite roles within the party; organization of the party schedule; supporting partyevents.External mobilization covered a wide range of common get out the vote (GOTV)activities divided into: offline contact via phone and/or friends and family; onlinecontacting through email, SNS and Twitter or iPhone applications; offline canvassing viaface to face methods, leafleting; running and promoting campaign events. In addition,


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attention was directed toward the provision of tools to mobilize elites in support of theparty cause. This typically might involve contacting editors of media outlets and theleaders of pressure groups or trade unions via: offline methods (mail, fax); onlinemethods (e-petitions or sending emails) .Message production focused on tools that allowed supporters to help shape or

contribute to the parties core message and policy stance. It was sub-divided into threeareas of supporter activity: email production ; poster production ; manifesto/policydocument production.Finally, message distributionwas measured through a range of items that allowed forexternal promotion of the parties message, these included: sharing policy documents;downloading banners and ads to display on a personal web page; sharing party blogpostings on the wider Web.

Findings

The results of the analysis of the UK sites and full listing of indices are presented inTables 1 through 5. The first four tables present the results of the analysis of theindividual functions community building; internal mobilization; external mobilizationand message production and distribution - the final table presents a cumulative scorefor the extent to which the sites as a whole promoted the new practice of citizen-campaigning.

An initial examination of the welcome pages revealed MyCons to be the mostsimilar to the MyBO site in design). Users were provided with a personal dashboardthat contained an individual campaign activity monitor or tracker as well as a fundraising widget that could be copied to ones own web pages. Interestingly, however, themore discussion oriented features such as chat fora and blogs were missing. The otherparties adopted a more branded approach to their campaign hubs, matching their

design to that of their home pages more closely. In contrast to MyCons most of themalso appeared to be making more effort to promote internal dialogue and networkingamong registered users, at least judging by the main menu bars. The extent to whichthese impressions were confirmed by closer analysis of the site content is discussedbelow.

Turning first to the community building function Table 1 reveals that all theparties did make some effort toward community building, although the SNPs effort wasextremely minimal. Most of the parties provided individuals with an avatar that theycould personalize by uploading a picture. They also allowed for people to say somethingof interest about themselves and why they were supporting the party. Overall, however,

it seems that the Liberal Democrats were the most active in developing the networkingelements of their sites, covering all the sub-functions to some extent even the inclusionof collaborative type of work space, whereby individuals could share and work ondocuments together. The relatively low score achieved on this function by MyConsconfirms the first impressions that it placed a lower premium on the social interactionand expression of supporters views than the other sites. Of the smaller parties the BNPemerged with a comparatively strong performance, rivaling that of Labour andexceeding the Conservatives score. This was despite the fact that when coded a number


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of features such as its blog features were disabled.Table 2 reports the findings for the second function of internal mobilization. For

this function and the three others that follow the content was spread across thecampaign and main sites. To record this a simple x was used to indicate the materialwas present on the campaign site, ms showed it to be on the main site and where this

occurred but no link was available from the campaign site this was noted as ms no link.The scoring was adjusted to reward consolidation of functions into the campaign site.For the additive indices this meant that an x received a score of 1, ms a score of 0.5and ms no link a zero score. In the case of ordinal scales where the function wasmeasured as a whole, if that function was carried out on the main site but linked to bythe campaign site then half of the total score achieved was awarded. Otherwise a scoreof zero was assigned. The use of LS for Labour refers to Labour Space which as notedabove was an additional campaign site operated by the party prior to and during theelection. The same system of partial credit based on links from Membersnet wasapplied. To reflect this split and inter-linkage of content the final scores in tables 2 4report two totals the first is based on the weighted data with full and partial creditassigned to campaign site and linked main site content respectively. The second, inparentheses, is the total if no adjustment is made all content is fully counted, regardlessof where it is placed and whether a link exists.

Overall the results in table 2 record a poor performance by the parties in termsof exploiting the options available to them to use their supporters to help generaterevenue, and new members. The numbers do improve somewhat when main sitefeatures are added into the While most offered a facilities for individuals to join, donateand volunteer to help (largely through links to their main sites), they did not provide agreat deal to enable these individuals to then go forward and promote these activitiesmore widely. The Conservatives were perhaps the most innovative in this regard,

providing a promotional widget that could be copied and placed on a web page thatwould direct others to the donation pages of the main site. The Conservatives were alsovery focused in their calls for funds, specifically linking varying amounts of money tooutcomes in terms of numbers of posters produced and leaflets distributed. Moregenerally, use of the sites to step up individuals involvement in the party by offeringthem opportunities to work as local organizers or even put themselves forward ascandidates were not widely utilized. Finally, the sites did go some way to involvingmembers in setting the schedule for the party through allowing people to add events,although there were no facilities for making requests or suggestions for visits by seniorpoliticians to attend them.

Efforts at external mobilization shown in Table 3 report a similarly limited effortby parties to use their supporters to actively campaign on their behalf. If only thecampaign site content is included then just one of the parties the Conservatives reach double digits Once the main sites are added to the picture the story does changequite significantly, however, with Labour emerging with a very healthy score of 20. Thesmaller parties again perform relatively poorly with very few features present throughwhich they could target their supporters energies toward getting out their vote.

Finally the combined results for message production and distribution are shown


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in table 4. Here we see a stronger focus on the latter function with most of the partiesproving somewhat reluctant to involve their supporters in creating or co-producing thecampaign message. Features enabling users to send round policy focused emails, createtheir own posters or leaflets and contribute to discussion within the party are virtuallynon-existent. The LibDems did have a group that invited individuals to create and share

their own posters on promoting one of the partys key themes of fairness. Also whentaking into account the main sites, Labour had clearly made efforts through LabourSpace to harness the ideas of supporters to contribute to the manifesto prior to itslaunch. More generally, however, better use was made of the sites to enable users todistribute the parties message and policy to the wider Web audience. This wasparticularly true of the Liberal Democrats who featured a wealth of downloadablebanners and posters on the site and options to export site content through RSS feeds,Facebook, Twitter and email. The figures for Labour and the Conservatives are boosted,however, when one adds in the main site contents.

Table 5 presents the overall rating of each of the five parties in terms of theextent to which their sites promote citizen-campaigning, i.e. the extent to which theyhave deployed online tools to allow ordinary supporters to play a role in campaignorganization and message management. The table cumulates scores across all theindices using only those items that most directly measure citizen-campaigning. So forcommunity and network building, we are most interested here in the extent to whichthe site allowed for the various sub-activities within it to be promoted and publicized byindividuals outside of the site. Similarly for internal mobilization, beyond personallysigning up to help the party, what was the extent of opportunity to undertake to recruitothers to do so? In terms of assigning scores, in this table we have not discriminated asto whether the item is present on the campaign sites vs the main site or accessible fromit. Thus, the total reflects overall effort by the parties to generate this new form of

citizen activism.The result is somewhat unsurprisingly a picture of dominance by the

major parties over the minor parties. Clearly this is another area of normalizationrather than equalization in terms of parties effective exploitation of the new medium.Beyond this divide, however, some interesting patterns emerge across the three mainparties. In particular Labour emerges as the most active in promoting citizen-campaigning while the Conservatives are found to be considerably less so. The LiberalDemocrats sit somewhere in between. Digging beneath these overall figures, however,into the component scores it becomes clear that while Labour performed relatively wellacross the range of functions, the Conservatives proved to be more focused on signing

supporters up actively campaign on their behalf, while the Liberal Democrats appear tohave been somewhat more internally oriented in their efforts, using LibDemAct to builda wider community network and mobilize internal resources. A finding that may reflecttheir wider strategic goals for use of the new media in the election (Williamson et al.,2010) A final point of comparison to note, however, is that while Labour were the mostenergetic in harnessing their supporters to help their campaign effort, they were alsothe most fragmented in their approach. Membersnet was one part of a wider hub of e-activism that was spread across at least two other sites. This no doubt reflects the


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earlier start that the party made in developing its strategy for promoting online activismand a more adaptive and incremental approach to the task. The other two parties camelater to the process of designing these activist sites, allowing them to take a moreintegrative approach. Regarding the minor parties, these results are somewhatsurprising in terms of the gulf they reveal between their efforts and that of the major

parties in using the new e-tools to build stronger activist networks. While one mightexpect some of the more sophisticated resources such as virtual phonebanks andmobile phone GOTV applications to be out of the financial reach of the smaller players itdoes appear that the smaller parties have failed exploit more obvious opportunities thesites provided for them, particularly in terms of raising internal resources.

Conclusions

Use of the internet in political campaigning has increased rapidly over the lastdecade, with almost all parties and candidates that compete in national level electionsnow having an online presence. The question of how far this has had an effect orchanged the nature of politics in general and elections more particularly is one that hasbecome increasingly important to address. In the parties sphere, despite some initialexpectations that a new more decentralized model of organization would emerge,skepticism largely took hold as the empirical evidence began to roll in showing politicsas usual was the end result (Margolis and Resnick, 2000). However, as we have notedthese claims require some reassessment in light of the growth of use in web 2.0applications and particularly their use in recent U.S. elections. Identifying a new practiceof citizen-campaigning that is facilitated through the arrival of tools such as socialnetworking sites, online video and blogs we have argued that parties embracing suchtactics, are opening up to a new style of campaign management, that places more directautonomy and power in the hands of ordinary supporters. However, crucially this

operates and is supported by a wider party-controlled virtual and physicalinfrastructure.

While one might see the Obama campaign as having perfected the strategy thecentral question that we have posed here is to what extent was this model exportableto other democratic contexts? In particular, we have focused on the extent to which UKparties can be seen to have adopted this more open source approach to campaigning.Our results have shown that UK parties, and particularly the major parties have startedto move toward harnessing the power of social media to empower their activists,although not to the extent that was seen in the U.S. While the reasons for this shortfallare complex and beyond the scope of this paper to fully outline, it is likely that a number

of factors are at work. UK parties are typically as seen as more responsible than theirU.S. counterparts, operating through an established hierarchy and formal membership.Thus, increasing reliance on the type of loose or informal supporter model that lies atthe heart of active citizen-campaigning would chafe strongly against existing norms. Inaddition, activities such as donating to parties let alone fund-raising on their behalf thatlie at the core of the new type of activism are not standard practices for UK citizens asthey are for U.S. voters. Finally, the legal framework may act as a brake on the extentand speed of any roll-out of citizen-campaigning. While the divulging of voter contact


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details based on provision of a hotmail email address and postcode may have beenpossible in the U.S., the tight data protection legislation in place in the UK may meanthat parties are unwilling to risk possible legal challenges to the practice over here.

In general then, the shift toward a more outsourced if not open source modelof campaigning does appear to be taking hold as part of the internets movement into

the political mainstream. Already in the Australian federal election of 2010 we see thatthe two major parties had moved to set up these campaign hub sites. Parties thereforedo seem to realizing the opportunities digital technologies offer for building newrelationships with their supporters and activists which in turn allow them to buildrelationships with voters. The extent to which this may be producing a genuine transferof power within parties is as yet unclear and there are a number of interveningcontextual variables affecting the pace and depth of any such transformation. It ishoped that future ecampaign studies can build on the measurement scheme presentedhere continue to monitor and chart the progress of this phenomena and theorganisational implications that flow from it.


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Table 1: Communit y & Network Bu ilding Scores by Campaign Site

Key: x = feature present ; np = feature not present ; na = not available/accessible

LIBDEMACT MYCONS MEMBSNET SNP BNP

SNS Profile (0 -8)Bio/about youPhotoWhy joined/support

Gen activities listingGroup /camp memb.Vol/camp activity auditPromote extEmail/shareEmbed widget/link

Sub-total (addiitive)

xxx

xx-

xx

7

xx-

-xx

--.

4

xxx

x--

-x

5

---

x--

--

1

xx-

x--

--.

3

GROUPS (0-7)JoinDiscussPromote intTagStart/createPromote extEmail/share

Embed widget/linkTotal no. groups

Sub-total (additive)

xxx-x

x

x308

6

-----

-

--

0

xx---

-

x67

3

-----

-

--

0

xxx-x

x

--

5

BLOG (0-6)Link pty/leader blogComment to pty blogStart/createPost others blogsTrack others blogsExternally promote/shareTotal no.


--xxx-

na

3

xx-----

2

--xxx-

385

3

xx-----

2

xxnanana-

na

2

EMAIL/MSG SYSTEM (0 3)InternalExt access

Import own address book


x-

x

2

x-

-

1

x-

-

1

---

-

0

x-

x

2

WIKI /WORKSPACE (0-2)InternalInvite / share ext.


x-

1

--

0

--

0

--

0

--

0

Overall Score (0-26) 19 7 12 3 12


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Table 2: Internal Mobilization Scores by Campaign Site

Key: ms = feature present on main site and link present from campaign sitex ms = feature present on campaign site and main site

ms no link = feature present on main site but no link from campaign siteLS no link = feature present on Labour Space no link from campaign siteFigures in ( ) = total campaign site + main site, otherwise total for campaign site plus 0.5 if link to ms

*for ordinal scaled variables where features are on ms and a link to ms present then half of score awarded.

LIBDEMACT MYCONS MEMBSNET SNP BNPFUND RAISEIndividual ( add. 0-3)Donate offline = 1Donate online (gen) = 1

Donate online spec) = 1For Party(add. 0-3) = 1Email fwd/share = 1Embed link/widget =1Direct for cand/pty =1Sub-total (0-6)

-ms

-

---

0.5 (1 ms)

msms

x ms

-x-

2 (4 ms)

-ms no link

-

-ms no link

-0 (2 ms)

-ms

-

---

0.5 (1 ms)

-ms

-

---

0.5 (1 ms)

MEMBERSHIPIndividual (add 0-3)Join offline = 1Join online = 1Join as a friend/supporter =1For Party (add 0-2)Promote memb ext =1Email fwd/share =1Embed widget/link =1

Sub-total (0-5)

msms-

--

ms1.5 (3 ms)

ms no linkms no linkms no link

---

0 ( 3 ms)

msms-

--

ms1.5 (3 ms)

-ms-

---

0.5 (1 ms)

-msms

---

1 (2 ms)

VOLUNTEERSign up offline =1Sign up online (gen) =1Sign up online (specific) =1Sub-total (add 0 - 3)

--x

0.5 (1 ms)

--x

0.5 (1 ms)

--

x ms1 (1 ms)

--

ms no link0 (1 ms)

-ms-

0.5 (1 ms)

ELITE RECRUITLocal org (ordinal 0-4)How to (basic info) = 1Email contact = 2Complete form (dload) = 3Complete form (online) = 4Local / Nat Cand. (ord. 0-4)How to (basic info) =1Email contact/register int.=2Complete form (dload) = 3Complete form (online) = 4

Sub-total (0-8)

----

msms-

ms2* (4 ms)

----

ms no link--

0 (1 ms)

----

---

0 (0 ms)

----

---

0 (0 ms)

ms---

---

0.5 (1 ms)

PARTY SCHEDULEEvent calendarFixed/static = 1Interactive - srch/ cust. = 2Interactive - add event = 3Interactive - sugg visits) = 4Sub-total (ordinal 0-4)

-xx-3

----0

-xx-3

----0

-----0

EVENTSign-up to join/attend =1Discuss = 1Promote internally =1Sub-total (additive 0- 3)

xxx3

xxx3

xLS no link

x2 (3 LS)

ms--

0.5 (1 ms)

msnana

0.5 (1 ms)

Overal l Score (0-29) 9.5(15 MS) 5.5n ( 12 MS) 7.5 (12 LS/MS) 1.5 (4 MS) 3 (6 MS)


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Table 3: External Mobilization Scores by Campaign Site

*for ordinal scaled variables where features are on ms and a link to ms present then half of score awarded.

LIBDEMACT MYCONS MEMBSNET SNP BNPOFFLINE CONTACT (Mass)Phone GOTV (ordinal 0-3)Info on how to help = 1Sign up onsite = 2

Access phonebank= 3Discuss wi th F&F (ord 0-2)Promote/encourage = 1Sign up/pledge = 2

Sub-total (0-5)

-ms

-

--

1* (2 ms)

xx

x

--3

ms no linkms no link

ms (memb) no link

-ms no link0 (5 ms)

---

-

--0

---

-

--0

ONLINE CONTACT (Mass)Email (0-2 ord)Send GOTV email = 1Create/cust GOTV email = 2Facebook (0-1)Share/post GOTV msg =1Twitter (0-1)Share/post GOTV msg.= 1Sub-total (0-4)

--

-

-0

x-

x

x0


ms no link

ms no link0 (4 ms)

---

-

-0

---

-

-0

GOTV i-phone appNot linked/independent = 1

Promoted onsite = 2D-load onsite =3Sub-total (ordinal 0-3)

-

--0

x

--1

x

--1

-.

--0

--

--0

CANVASS (F2F)Info on how to help = 1Sign up onsite = 2

Access database = 3Sub-total (ordinal 0-3)

-ms-

1* (2 ms)

xx-2


ms (memb) no link0 (3 ms)

----0

-ms-

1*(2 ms)

LEAFLETDownload to print = 1Sign up online =1Sub-total (additive 0 -2)

xms

1.5 (2 ms)

-ms

0.5 (1 ms)

-ms

0.5(1 ms)

--0

--0

EVENT/CAMPAIGNStart/create = 1Promote externallyEmail msg / share = 1Embed widget/link = 1

Total no.Sub-total (additive 0 -3)

x

xx

190 (categ)3

-

xx

2

x

LS no linkx

?2 (3 ls)

-

ms-

?0.5 (1 ms)

na

nana

?0

OFFLINE CONTACT (Elit e)Mail/faxpromote to write letter = 1d-load to print/send = 2fax letter on site = 3

Sub-total (ordinal 0-3)

---0

na???0

---0

---0

---0

ONLINE CONTACT (Elite)e-petition (ordinal 0-2)external link = 1onsite = 2email (ordinal 0-3)promote to send email = 1email forward = 2cust/create email = 3

Sub-total (0-5)

--

---

0

-x

ms-

ms

2 (5 ms)

--

xLS no linkLS no link

1 (3 ls)

-x

ms-

ms

3.5* (5 ms)

-ms----

1* (1 ms)Overal l Scor e (0-29) 6.5 (9 MS) 10.5 (14 MS) 4.5 (20 M/LS) 4 (6 MS) 2 (3 MS)


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Table 4: Message Product ion and Distri bution by Campaign SiteLIBDEMACT MYCONS MEMBSNET SNP BNP

PRODUCTIONEmail msg (0-1)Customize/ Create

Poster/leaflet (0-1)

Customize/ CreateManifesto /policy docs (0-3)Comment = 1Send policy suggestions = 1Wiki/policy blog = 1Subtotal (additive 0-5)

-

x

---1

-

-

---0

ms no link

-

LS no linkLS no link

-0 (3 LS & ms)

ms no link

-

---

0 (1 ms)

-

-

---0

DISTRIBUTIONWeb banners/ads d-load = 1Posters/leafets d-load = 1Email/share policy docs =1RSS feed to website = 1Share blog posts ext. = 1Link to SNS profile = 1Link to Twitter = 1Import email contacts = 1Subtotal (additive 0-8)

xx

msx-xxx

6.5 (7.5 ms)


--x--x

2 (6 ms)

ms no link-

ms no linkms no linkms no link

x-x

2 (4 ms)

ms no link--

ms no link----

0 (2 ms)


-ms no linkms no link

---

0 (4 ms)

Overall Score (0-13) 7.5 (8.5 ms) 2 (8 ms) 2 (8 ms/ls) 0 (3 ms) 0 (5 ms)


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Table 5: Overall Citizen Campaign Acti vity Index

LIBDEMACT MYCONS MEMBSNET SNP BNP

Community/NetworkExt promote profileExt promote GroupsExt promote Blog

Ext promote WikiExt promote EmailSubtotal (additive 0-5)

xx-

-x3

---

--0

-x-

--1

---

--0

-x-

--1

Internal MobilisationPersonal fundraisingPromote membershipSign up local organiserSign up as candidate

Add event to party scheduleVote leaders to attend eventsSubtotal (additive 0-6)

-ms-

msx-3

x-----1

msms--x-3

------0

------0

External MobilisationAccess phonebankAccess database to canvasSign up to discuss f&fGOTV onlineSend emailPost to FaceBookPost to Twitter

GOTV i-phone appLeaflets DownloadEventStart/CreateExternally promote

Start e-petitionEmail forward to MP/newsppSubtotal (additive 0-12)

---

----x

xx--3

x--

xxxx-

-x-

ms7

ms (members)ms (members)

ms

msmsmsx-

xx-

LS10

---

-----

---

ms1

---

-----

nana-

ms1

Message c reate/distributePolicy email fwd/customisePoster/leaflet cust./createManifesto input/feedback

Web banners/ads d-loadPosters/leaflets d-loadEmail/share policy docsRSS feed to websiteShare blog posts ext.Link to SNS profileLink to Twitter accountImport email contacts

Subtotal (additive 0-11)

-x-

xx

msx-xxx9

---

msms--x--x5

ms-ls

ms-

msmsmsxxx9

ms--

ms--

ms----3

---

msms-

msms-x-5

Overall Score (0-34) 18 13 23 4 7

Documents

Open Source Campaigning in the UK.pdf