Current Affairs Czech politicians struggle with the demands of campaigning online
It appears that Czech politicians have discovered the power of the Internet. But while elsewhere the medium has revolutionized campaigning thanks to its interactivity, in the Czech Republic it has acquired the form of gauche New Years’ greetings from politicians, boring web sites and fraudulent web pages ridiculing the politician or party in question. Three political parties have distanced themselves from websites bearing their name. Political analyst Jiří Pehe says that while the Internet affords tremendous possibilities, Czech politicians simply don’t know how to use it.
“I think that they do not realize that the Internet - especially Facebook
- is a very interactive environment and you cannot think that by putting
your picture and name somewhere and having an assistant handle the
communication with people who write to you, who want to talk to you, will
do the job. I think that young people especially know well when they are
actually interacting with the politician in question. They want an
authentic discussion and the way that political leaders in the Czech
Republic deliver their messages is very artificial, very stale and very
old-fashioned.”
And what do you think of the fraudulent websites? Negative campaigns have become typical of the Czech political scene. Are they going to work with young people, because that is clearly the target group here?
“I am afraid that just like politicians do not know how to use various websites those people who want to discredit politicians by creating fraudulent websites are really not convincing anyone either, because sooner or later it will become clear that this or that particular website is not genuine and was put there by someone else to discredit the given politician. So I do not think it does anything in political terms –it is just a joke and personally I am surprised that anyone wants to spend the energy, time and money to do this because I think the results are negligible.”
To what extent do you think that campaigning on the Internet will affect the outcome of the spring general elections?
www.paroubek.cz
“In my opinion it may have some effect, but as I said, politicians who
use the Internet have to be in synch with this medium. Young people are
very aware of who is suited for this kind of communication. So, for
instance, when Barack Obama relied heavily on the Internet in his
presidential campaign I think that young people -and a lot of Americans
generally - felt that he somehow belonged there, he was comfortable with
it, he was interactive and so on. We may have some politicians of this sort
in the Czech Republic as well – I would think that the Green Party would
find the Internet a very good medium because this is exactly the medium
that their audience follows. But if we look at politicians such as Jiří
Paroubek, the leader of the Social Democratic Party or Mirek Topolánek, the
leader of the Civic Democrats –I personally think that they are so much
out of synch with what’s going on on the Internet and with the kind of
communication that may be affective there that it is really almost
counterproductive for them to try to use it.”
