The Internet is not for elections

The FRGO final report on October 14, the election summed up, among others, and the disappointing result of the election Internet activity: the Internet is still not a competitor to “offline” agitation tools. The fund itself is sure that the heyday of the network as a tool is just around the corner. Independent political scientists are much more pessive.

The other day, the Fund for the Development of Civil Society (Germany) published a final report on the elections “Elections for New Rules: the main results and trends” last October 14. Among other things, the report gives data on the progress of lighting in the runet of regional campaigns with a rating of Internet activity in various regions during election campaigning. Previously, this analysis was not carried out by anyone, which makes the report data especially interesting.

The report provides an analysis of the election Internet operation of campaigns in eight regions (five, where the governor’s elections, as well as Udmurtia, Krasnodar Territory and the Saratov Region, where the elections were held) and four cities (Vladivostok, Yarovslavl, where the city councils were selected, and Kaliningrad, where the elections of the head of the municipality) were held.

The report notes that "the large-scale liberalization of the political system of 2011-2012, which includes the return of the elections of governors, contributed to the revival of the political technology market, including in the context of ensuring Internet operation of election campaigns."

The main Internet tools of the past campaign of the FRGO were called discussions on forums and comments on publications in the media, Internet surveys, the distribution of videos, maintaining pages on social networks, independent Internet projects and game animation.

According to the given rating, the highest Internet active index was received by the Bryansk region-22 out of 25 possible,

The second place went to Yaroslavl - 20 points (the regional forums and the VKontakte network were most actively involved here), and the third was divided by Vladivostok and the Novgorod Region - 19 points each. At the same time, in Vladivostok, LJ and Facebook were most actively used, and in the Novgorod region - LiveJournal and local forums. The most “unlimited” was the Belgorod region-11 points, there all Internet tools were involved in a minimum.

Network forums, according to the report, are leading as information suppliers and the place of discussion of the campaign in most regions. Especially where the first persons and candidates for the Legislative Assembly do not show Internet active.

A separate tool remains

“Living Journal”, which, as follows from the report, holds the second place to report to the voters of political materials,

Including the regional context.

Internet surveys of public opinion are used actively, but are often used for manipulative purposes. Although, as follows from the report,

On political resources claiming independence, Internet surveys may well be a source of information, which is confirmed by a low turnout and high level of protest voting.

“The options“ I won’t go to the elections from the principle ”,“ against all ”are usually among the leaders, ahead of voting options for opposition candidates,” the report says.

Videos released during the past campaigns were divided into two categories: advertising and compromising. At the same time, the first, which is predictable, was not particularly popular, unlike the latter. “ The number of videos created by simple amateurs to demonstrate their own views is negligible,” the report says. It is noted that a solid share of popularity did not occur on specially prepared video materials, but on provocative excerpts from the performances of well-known political figures: “More than 70 thousand views found out in a 30-second video, which gives a fragment of the president of the Republic of Udmurtia A. Volkov.”

The social network "VKontakte" is named after LJ a leading platform during the election campaign. At the same time, the resource was often used to mobilize the asset (discussion and planning of rallies and shares) in special groups.

Facebook and Twitter in preparation for the past elections were much less actively involved. The report notes that

Facebook “has become weak in regional political life,” and “Twitter platform is the least involved in the regional elections”.

At the same time, an analysis of the social base of these resources is given: for Facebook, it is represented by an active middle class up to 35-40 years, and for Twitter-audiences of up to 35 years.

As third-party beneficiaries from the pre-election Internet active, regional Internet media turn out to be, the increase in attendance of which reaches in hotel cases to almost 10%.

The conclusions of the analysis, according to the analysts of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, are the dominance of political forces opposition to “United Russia”, the dependence between the level of elections and the involvement in online work by politicians and the passive use of the Internet by representatives of official authorities and candidates over 50 years old. At the same time

There was no connection between the intensity of the use of the network and the party belonging to analysts.

The general conclusion is disappointing: “Despite the fact that a series of regional electoral campaigns contributed to an increase in interest in solving political issues on the Internet,“ offline ”(banners, distribution of campaign material on the streets, publications in print media, etc.) The method of agitation is still the main one.”

At the same time, the head of the fund, in the past, a high -ranking official Konstantin Kostin told Polit.ru that the failure of the Internet compared to traditional media is a matter of time.

As we have already noted in our previous report “Runet Today”,

There is a hope that by 2016 the Internet will be able to become a campaign resource along with newspapers and television ”,

- The ex-head of the domestic policy of the Presidential Administration is sure.

“The key to this [growth of interest in the Internet] is a strong interest in discussing domestic political processes by citizens,” the report says.

Political scientists look at the development of the Internet as a campaign resource much more skeptical, in their opinion, just this “interest in the discussion” is completely nowhere to undertake.

So, according to the political scientist, professor of the European University in St. Petersburg, Vladimir Gelman, the problem of the level of use of the Internet in the elections is not a matter of its technical development: there is simply no demand for him now. It can only appear along with the advent of real, and not decorative, as now, competition.

“Demand for the Internet as a tool for agitation can seriously appear only when the possibility of meaningful choice during the campaign arises.

In the Duma elections of 2011, the Internet was a very noticeable resource, showing itself as a campaign tool against United Russia. The action “Vote for anyone except crooks and thieves” was quite successful due to the materials posted on the Internet in many respects, ”the political scientist notes. - And in the past governor’s elections, look, there was no real struggle. There were candidates from the party of power and, we will call them like this, dummies. And since no campaign, in fact, flowed, then there was no demand for campaigning, including the Internet,. Real campaigns will arise, and an increase in agitation on the network will arise. I fully admit that in the future such campaigns may arise. ”

The director of the Interregional Electoral Support network Grigory Golosov does not consider it possible to talk about any real terms in which politicians will grow interest in the Internet: United Russia will only intensify in the near future, more and more reducing the level of competition in the elections, and therefore interest in electoral impact tools as a whole.

“The low result of“ United Russia ”in the Duma elections that passed in December is rather deviation, a deviation from the plan, which was demonstrated by the tremendous confusion of the Kremlin. Now everything has returned to their own circles, ”the expert believes. -The Internet can only be effective if someone takes it to use it to achieve electoral goals, as was the case in December. Now that the election campaigns themselves are actually ignored by the participants themselves, the Internet is used extremely weakly. Does this mean that the Internet was important, but became not at all important? Of course not . The question is when he begins to grow is an open question. This is a question whether someone will take him in his hands to use, and in this case, as you see, no one picked it up in his hands. ”