Informative, but not Engaging: Italian Parties’ On Line Communication in the 2006 Elections

This research analyzes the on line tools that Italian national parties employed in the 2006 parliamentary election. Overall, 27 web sites were analyzed at three stages of the campaign with a coding scheme that featured 79 categories, derived from the existing literature and updated to measure recent developments. Parties’ on line efforts were scrutinized along three main lines of inquiry: information tools, participation tools, and professionalism. Results show that Italian national parties have reached a good proficiency level in terms of informing their on line users and in adapting quite sophisticated production techniques, but still leave much to be desired in terms of maximizing the internet’s potential for participation and mobilization. Overall, the data offer only partial support to the hypothesis of ‘normalization’ of cyberspace.