Abstract
The internet was one of the most discussed communication innovations in the French 2007 Presidential and legislative elections. In order to assess the state of online campaigning in France, this article analyzes the characteristics of the websites of 12 presidential candidates and 10 national parties during the campaign. The data reveal that, despite the media hype, online electioneering in France is still at an intermediary stage, especially in terms of participation tools. Significant differences were found among candidates and, especially, parties. The gap between large and small parties is found to be greater than in most of similar country studies, thus providing new evidence against the internet's ability to level the political playing field. Distinctive patterns of online electioneering emerge between conservative and progressive parties and candidates.
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Notes
Data from Eurostat, see http://www.ec.europa.eu/eurostat.
The first round of the Presidential elections was held on 22 April, with 12 candidates on the ballot. The runoff between socialist Ségolène Royal and Gaullist Nicolas Sarkozy, who went on to win by a 53-47 margin, was held on 6 May. The first round of the legislative elections was held on 10 June and the runoff took place on 17 June. Sarkozy's party, UMP, obtained 313 parliamentary seats out of 577, while the PS had 186.
In addition, some parties' and candidates' sites were not considered in all observations. The sites of Presidential candidates Frédéric Nihous and Gérard Schivardi were not analyzed in the first measurement, but were included in the second after they met the signature threshold required to be on the ballot. The sites of newly formed parties Mouvement Démocrate and Nouveau Centre, both of which were born from the UDF after the Presidential election, were only considered in the fifth measurement. Appendix A lists all candidates' and parties' websites and their URLs.
The full coding scheme can be found in Appendix B.
At the time of the Presidential election, Bayrou was the leader of UDF. Afterwards, he left UDF and founded the Mouvement Démocrate (MoDem).
The results of such equations are not presented here because, while expenditures by Presidential candidates are publicly available at the time of this writing, only data referring to the 2004 general budgets are available for parties, which, to make matters worse, forced us to exclude MoDem and Nouveau Center from the analysis as they were formed in 2007. In order to conduct a reliable study of these relationships, 2007 financial data for parties will have to be included.
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Appendices
Appendix A
List of parties' and candidates' websites analyzed
Parties
Front National (FN) — http://www.frontnational.com
Les Verts — http://www.lesverts.fr
Mouvement Démocrate (MoDem) — http://www.bayrou.fr
Mouvement pour la France (MPF) — http://www.mpf-villiers.com
Nouveau Centre (NC) — http://www.le-nouveaucentre.org
Parti Communiste Français (PCF) — http://www.pcf.fr
Parti Radical de Gauche (PRG) — http://www.planeteradicale.org
Parti Socialiste (PS) — http://www.parti-socialiste.fr
Union pour la Démocratie Française (UDF) — http://www.udf.org
Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) — http://www.u-m-p.org
Presidential candidates
François Bayrou (UDF, then MoDem) — http://www.bayrou.fr
Olivier Besancenot (Ligue communiste révolutionnaire) — http://www.besancenot2007.org
José Bové (anti-liberal collectives) — http://www.unisavecbove.org
Marie-Georges Buffet (PCF) — http://www.mgbuffet.org
Arlette Laguiller (Lutte ouvrière) — http://www.arlette-laguiller.org
Jean-Marie Le Pen (FN) — http://www.lepen2007.fr
Frédéric Nihous (Parti Chasse, pêche, nature, traditions) — http://www.nihous2007.fr
Ségolène Royal (PS) — http://www.desirsdavenir.org
Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) — http://www.sarkozy.fr
Gérard Schivardi (Parti des Travailleurs) — http://www.schivardi2007.com
Philippe de Villiers (Mouvement pour la France) — http://www.pourlafrance.fr
Dominique Voynet (Les Verts) — http://www.dominiquevoynet.net
Appendix B
Coding sheet for website characteristics
1. Information tools (maximum score=32 for parties, 30 for candidates)
1a.Information supply (maximum score=22 for parties, 20 for candidates): History, ‘about us’ — Leader/candidate's profile and biography — Candidates' profile and biography (only for party sites) — Party/campaign structure and organization — Contacts, phone numbers, e-mail addresses — Endorsements by groups, associations, movements — Party values and ideology — Party issue platform — Speeches and statements by party officials — Events calendar — Press clippings — Information on electoral law and voting procedures — Comparisons with opponents' record and platform — Data, statistics, dossiers on public policies — External links — Dedicated election website (only for party sites) — Downloadable materials from the communication campaign — Frequently Asked Questions on the party/candidate — Other modalities — Average number of news items published daily (0 items=0 points; 1 or 2=1; 3 or 4=2; from 5 to 7=3; more than 7=4)
1b.Information in push mode (maximum score=4): Newsletter subscription — SMS and PDA updates — Podcasting — XML, RSS feeds — Other modalities
1c.Targeting (maximum score=6): Specific pages for interest groups (e.g. business, labour, teachers) — Specific pages for issue groups (e.g. environmentalists) — Specific pages for identity groups (e.g. women, gays, minorities) — Specific pages for age groups (e.g. young, seniors) — Specific pages for voters in different geographic areas — Newsletters tailored to users' subscription information — Other modalities
2. Participation tools (maximum score=30)
2a.Online interactivity (maximum score=13): Online polls — Discussion forums, chat rooms — Chats and forums with candidates and party or campaign officials — Solicitation of questions to candidate/party/campaign officials via web or e-mail — Publication of questions sent and answers to them — Blog by the candidate or party — Users' comments allowed on the blog — Wiki and other forms of collective writing — Guestbook — Publication of brief messages by users (via online form or SMS) — Other modalities — Time required to answer an e-mail question on issues (one business day=3 points; from 2 to 4 business days=2; one business week and more=1; no answer=0)
2b.Resource mobilization (maximum score=9): Site area dedicated to volunteers and campaign engagement — Online subscription to the party (only web-based mode considered) — Online volunteer sign-up — Online fundraising (only web-based mode considered) — Online gadget store — ‘Send this page to a friend’ — Other modalities — Time required to answer a volunteer offer by e-mail (one business day=3 points; from 2 to 4 business days=2; one business week and more=1; no answer=0)
2c.Communication decentralization (maximum score=8): Social networking tools — Volunteer recruitment tools — Media contacting tools — Offline distribution of online-gathered materials (e.g. leaflet printing) — Tools for users to build sites linked to party/candidate site — Tools for users to build blogs linked to party/candidate site/blog — Online distribution of materials (e.g. electronic cards, e-mail forwarding, banners) — Possibility to send and publish user-produced audiovisual materials — Other modalities
3. Professionalism (maximum score=23)
3a.Design and multimedia features (maximum score=10): Animated introduction — Interstitial (splash) page before the home page — Photos and graphics (besides the header) — Background music — Audio clips — Video clips — Audio/video live streaming — Moving objects within the page — Online games — Animations, cartoons, comics
3b.Accessibility (maximum score=4): Access for disabled people (logo shown) — Accessibility with different browsers (W3C consortium logo shown) — Translation in other languages — Privacy statement
3c.Navigability (maximum score=5): Navigation bar in all pages — ‘Back’ or ‘home page’ link in all internal pages — Internal search engine — Site map — Navigation guide
3d.Update frequency (maximum score=4): Date when last update occurred (1 month ago=0 points; 2 weeks ago=1; last week=2; 1–2 days ago=3; within the last 24 hours=4)
Total maximum score=85 for parties, 83 for candidates.
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Vaccari, C. Surfing to the Élysée: The Internet in the 2007 French Elections. Fr Polit 6, 1–22 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fp.8200139
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fp.8200139