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.”