European elections for dummies

I have never voted at a polling station before. I was born a month too late to vote in the UK general election in 2005, and in the local elections of 2008 I voted by post. So when I suddenly realised I was eligible to vote in the European elections in under two weeks time, I panicked. What I know about Europe I learned for a public administration exam, and that was dry at the best of times. So I set myself the challenge of seeing what was happening online and through social networking that might help me. And it turns out, rather a lot. So for anyone else struggling with the idea, here is a quick rundown of the main online resources that might be able to help you find your feet - and a good indication of how well European politics is coping with the blogosphere.

How do you know who to vote for?

Step in Euprofiler. It's a bit lengthy, but stick with it. This site asks you a range of questions about your opinions on social welfare, immigration, security, integration and the like and then maps your responses with the party "most like you", both in the UK and in Europe at large. Admittedly it's not an exact science, but it's a good starting point to know where you might start reading around.

Flickr, MySpace and Facebook

Visit the European parliament's Flickr page to have see how various elements of the campaign are getting underway across the continent, and there are also MySpace and Facebook pages. Both are using similar viral tactics to Obama, with buttons or badges which can be embedded into profiles, although they lack the iconic edge that saw pictures of Obama appear on hundreds of thousands of people's own personal web space. The Facebook site is definately worth checking out. There are discussion strands on first-time voting, among other issues, and all sorts of links to other web projects happening in collaberation with the poll.

One of these includes a quaint resource on the European Parliament's own web site. The interactive time machine aims to explain (in very simply terms) what the EU has been doing for the last 30 years. It's obviously going to have a certain level of bias, but kudos to their web team for trying something different. There's also a very extensive delicious page for more in-depth reading on everything from gender equality in European democracy to sites analysing individuals MEP's voting records.

Further reading

A couple of the most interesting sites I came across were CanEUhearme? and thinkaboutit.eu. The first site is a competition run in conjunction with MTV designed to get primarily young voters to send in their videoa/pictures to make a statement about what it's like to be part of Europe. Although the competition is its main purpose, there is also other useful information, links and polls relating particularly to young, politically-minded Europeans, and they're on Twitter.

Once you've got an grip of the basics (I'm still not sure whether I have), thinkaboutit.eu is the next step for dicussing some of the more complex issues involved in the EU. The site is part of an international blogging competition organised by the European Journalism Centre and there are bloggers from each of the 27 states (three from the UK) who have been writing on European issues that matter to them. One of the UK bloggers Katrina Bishop gives a frank account of navigating her way through European politics, combining serious analysis with lighter content like "broadcast bingo"- measuring the number of times politicians use cliches in party political broadcasts. It's a good way to break up what can otherwise be a painful subject to push through.

YouTube and Twitter

Finally, the EU parliament do of course have a YouTube channel. The videos range from adverts reminding people to vote, explanatory vignettes on how the EU works, and clips from mini studios that have been placed around the UK for members of the public to "put their questions" to Europe.

But as mentioned earlier, the EU machine and individual MPs seem to be lagging behind on one vital ingredient- Twitter. According to one bit of research, only 27 out of a possible 736 MPs are using Twitter and two-thirds have never even heard of the site. However, this site acts as a forum for all tweeting MEPs, and suggests they are doing better than that.

There is also a way of keeping up with the bigger debate about the elections in the Twitterverse- TweetElect09 keeps up with EU-related tweets in real-time, analysing and categorising them by country, candidiate and other variables. Hash tag #eu09 is also up and running.

So there you have it - a fool-proof guide to the European elections using social networking tools. I'm hoping later in the week to write another post about what specific candidates are up to on the web, and I know there will be loads of really great blogs on a whole range of European topics, but for someone who started off today knowing very little about what was happening, I now feel a bit more connected. Hopefully no-one is left feeling the same same way as the girl in this slightly odd promotion video.

The tweeting elite

The explosion in commentary and coverage of the Twitter phenomenon is great for the fledgling website. As technology and media commentators alike continue to debate how the website can ever make money, the increase in users is testament to its popularity as a social media tool, regardless of whether it is turning a profit or not.

But one thing I have noticed, which has coincided with Twitter's rising star, is a wiff of twitter elitism. In the spirit of Charlie Brooker's (@CharltonBrooker) recent new media dictionary, we'll call this tweetism.

Tweeitsm can be defined as a certain level of snobbery about who is joining Twitter, and most importantly, the quality of their Tweets. This could be a reaction to celebrities jumping on the band wagon (see here for a great summary of influential Welsh Twitter users). In line with this, my first inckling this was happening was when, sat at my desk 10 days ago with Twhirl pinging away in the background, Jonathan Ross (@wossy) informed his 60, 047 followers disgraced comedian and fellow BBC exile Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) would be joining Twitter. Keen to see how this would pan out (some might call it schadenfreude), I signed up to the @rustyrockets fan club. Within 10 minutes, Brand had almost 10,000 followers. He now has 21, 218.

And what were his first words into this most trendy of new media spaces? "I have come to join you please be gentle with me, I have been feeling vulnerable...yet implausibly, sexy." Typical Brand, not many surprises there. But some of the tweets in reply, on my feed at least, expressed a cyncism about what people like Brand could bring to the forum, and, I felt, an inherent assumption about what Twitter should be about. That assumption was twitter was for those 'in the know' on subjects relating to new media, and not much else.

Firstly, I agree with the notion of good Twitter etiquette. And I will freely admit the majority of the 113 people I follow are in some way linked to journalism. This is not something I should, or will, apologise for; social media forums are primarily platforms for creating groups of shared interests. But it got me thinking about what we, as journalists, are using Twitter for. Is it just a case of journalists tweeting at other journalists about all things, well, journalism? If so, this is a very closed space.

If the purpose of forums like Twitter is to network, then this should be extended beyond our own colleagues, and could provide great opportunities for communication with your audience and public. In fact, this is what Jonathon Ross is doing by "following back" and engaging with a huge proportion of the people who follow him. If Twitter continues to grow at its current rate, and you get the readers of, say, a regional paper to contact their district reporter in this manner it could build up a much more personal service. Applications such as TwitterLocal can help to facilitate this.

Typing "business card twitter" into the site's search function brings up a whole host of conversations about whether it's appropriate to give your Twitter address out to clients etc. Some are forging ahead and doing so (picture taken from here). I say yes- it's another way to connect to your community- plus it can help combat the increasingly tight time constraints journalists are under.

Of course journalists will be early adopters for this kind of technology, and I would be interested to know whether others are in fact connecting with "client" commuities for business purposes. But I look forward to a time where my network at least, isn't quite so inward looking. Tweetism is on its way out.