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Read more about: Blogging, European Parliament, Irish Election, Irish Politics 
As in 2007 ‘s campaign coverage on Irishelection.com we’re planning roundups of online action several times a week. Two years on the world has moved technologically but have the candidates? There have been many debates over the attempts to Obamaify campaigns and these will continue.
But I’m not planning on participating in these and for the moment I’m going to plunder the best and worst and most interesting of the web, twitter, youtube and the like and Cian and I will bring snippets to you every few days. If you want to send me anything please email tips (@) mamanpoulet.com – all presents will be gratefully received. There are three types of campaign to cover so we’re in campaign monitoring heaven!
And if you are wondering if I’m not a few days early in kicking off the campaign coverage – well if the posters are going up early so am I!
First a nod to something that happened yesterday afternoon, a ‘conversation’ between the Green Party’s Twitter Account and Peter Donegan. It’s was about Senator Deirdre de Burca and the way she might tweet at you . It’s all one way traffic and no replies to those who ask question or look for info and well the Green Party tweeter defended Deirdre and compared her to Barack Obama’s twitter account. Oh dear. Stephen Spillane rounds up the conversation for our consumption. That’s the thing with social networks – it’s meant to be a conversation – not a megaphone!
We’re privileged to have more candidates blogging and twittering this year and the Sunny South East provides two of the finest - Cllr Joe Ryan (Lab) gives a run down of the candidate line up for Wexford Borough Council. In Waterford I’ve been a regular reader of a blog of a independent councillor – a woman blogging politician – a very rare breed! Cllr Mary Roche’s style of blogging is upfront and honest with snippets of colour from council meetings and reactions to local and national events. It’s definitely worth keeping an eye on. The latest post covers a speed dating for politicians event run by a local youth group.
Onto the European Parliament candidates - You may not have seen my rather middling first video diary entry yesterday regarding my thoughts on Libertas’s Mother Superior.
Labour’s Susan O’Keefe running in the North West Constituency in between seeking cups of tea has been spending time with George Clooney.
Checking out the candidate blog list it seems Mairead McGuinness from Fine Gael seems to be blogging without a comment facility. I know she’s not alone and more on this in later round ups. I can’t find a blog from any FF European Parliament Candidate – Eoin Ryan has not updated since February and it was only one entry. No blog on the Micandidate.eu Profile he’s bought either.
Squid from Limerick Blogger has an excellent post profiling the online nature of the candidacies in the European Parliment South Constituency.
Finally today to the treasure trove that is Youtube and what could be classed as an improvement to the pieces to camera in 2007, this year we have video blogs and adverts – efforts to make campaigns seem like a John Hinde tourist postcard?
First up is Mick Galvin – Mick is a Fine Gael candidate for Bray Town Council. Commissioned and paid for by Glynn ’09 Local Election Campaign ‘Our Town’ believes that ”If we can all believe and be proud of our town, the things that you want changed will disappear” . Not sure who’s fault the problems in Bray are according to Mick or the video. Or even who Mick is!
Directed by Tom Burke and produced by Shane Hogan (Areaman) the music was composed by John Fahy. All these credits eh? Irishelection will need to organise campaign oscars!
Speaking of Oscars! We can’t not mention the Election Movie from Donegal I was tipped off about last week.
Fianna Fáil Cllr. Francis Conaghan is retiring and Paul Canning is seeking his seat. We get 8 minutes of movie here with new schools, traffic lights, water dams and footpaths. But first we get the handover and thank you speech from the retiring candidate. I’m not sure if other candidates on FF ticket get a similar nod from Francis.
NB. I will be in Manorcunningham/Letterkenny next weekend so if any candidate from whatever party would like to meet up and maybe do a short video interview let me know! I’m not a movie maker though!
wow that is a lot of candidates, gotta update my rss feeds now!
That’s an absolutely brilliant interpretation of the Simons billboard. It’s one of those things you know, you don’t see it until it’s mentioned and then you wonder how you couldn’t have seen it in the first place. Kudos!
Fair enough response from Deirdre, I think it shows how a lot of commentators sitting on the sidelines don’t appreciate the stress and exhaustion that candidates go through at election time
Suzy, good luck with the campaign coverage. We’ve added your email to our general pol cor email list so you should get everything campaign related from now on.
On tweetgate, I think Mark’s got a pretty good line on it. We’re more than open to advice on how to get the most out of the new communications technologies. Mostly, the blogging community have been constructively critical as we’ve found our feet in this brave new world, and told us how we could get the most out of the technologies available.
IMO, some of the tweets on Sunday sounded like they were coming from the twitter police; “if you don’t @reply at least ten times a day then you’re an idiot and shouldn’t be using twitter”, kind of thing.
The first post that set of a series of others, read: “@greenparty_ie @deidredeburca should learn how to use twitter. It is supposed to be an interactive service. NOT an announcement service.”
I think Mark’s comments (http://blog.doneganlandscaping.com/2009/05/05/the-green-party-are-twits/#comments) and Deirdre’s post (http://www.whatistandfor.ie/twitter) cover the ground quite well.
I’d tend to say, different horses for different courses, but I think it’s an area that we could develop further if we get round to putting on this bloggers’ tour of the Dail that Damien Mulley contacted us about (a follow up to the RTE visit).
Perhaps we could do a liveblog from the Dail (if they’d let us) with some of our TDs and candidates on how politicians should be interacting? Any interest in that?
P.S. I saw a report on the Six One last week about the yoof media covering the euro elections with a fresh new angle for the kidz. (Just to emphasis the point, they had the young tyros sitting on the floor with their laptops, the way that all young people apparently love to sit.)
Do you know anything about it? Haven’t had a peep of contact about it.
Thanks for inclusion on the press list Damian and I hope to be able to attend an event in the next few weeks.
On the Youth Media in Europe yes I know about it and was involved in meeting the student pol corrs and explaining a bit about blogging etc.. (Yes I saw all that floor sitting with laptops and groaned a bit from the sofa!)
You can find further information on the project on their blog http://youthmediaforeurope.blogspot.com/ but also on the site of the European Movement who are the organisers – http://europeanmovement.ie/index.php?id=7752 – the Project Manger’s details are at bottom of the page.
Liveblogging from the Dáil – would the Commissioner allow a laptop into the public gallery? Or could we get a blogger into the Press Gallery – my kevlar jacket is on standby for the first person to do so!
Seriously the bloggers tour/meet and greet combined with other events (devoid of the usual pay us 400 euro to go to our digital conference lark) would be a great way to see this develop.
Just on the DdB thing. I had this comment over on Stephen’s but I thought I’d post it here too not quite to support what Damian says but to add to it a little. If DdB uses twitter in a way that ends up as no good to her then that’s her look out. I think her response on her blog is quite fair.
http://www.whatistandfor.ie/twitter
And I had posted for the general election that sometimes people have unrealistic ideas about the availability that pols have during the 3/4 weeks of the campaign.
http://dansullivan.blogspot.com/2007/05/candidates-cant-have-time-for-everyone.html
There are plenty of people on twitter who are not there to interact with all and sundry which is one of the reason I presume why you can protect your updates. And I don’t see anyone decrying that, nor do I see anyone having a problem with people sniping about others amongst their own grouping while not allowing them a right of reply. I expect there has been plenty of that around this instance. That’s what the tech let’s you do and so if it’s for you then you use it that way. It doesn’t mean everyone is required to do it.
Fact is that people will use this technology as they do others in a way that fits around them and what their priorities are. The point of an open model for a tool is supposed to be to to let each have their own way of working with it and not seeking after a homogenised ‘our way or the highway’ approach. I think people need to move beyond condemning anyone who doesn’t do as they do. Cries of ‘noob’ however they are dressed up from a 14 year old playing BF2 is fine but you’d expect better from adults. Or maybe we shouldn’t?
Dan
sorry mate…. but what was the question I asked in the first place?
might I add that if any green party representative had come back to me and said ‘hey peter, how can we help you… ‘ [eh recycling/ garden/ blog me?] I’d have written a post on them and there super dooper recycled posters. Instead I got a bit of a personality
This isn’t about Deidres tweet [or lack of] Its the fact that I cant get an answer [STILL] from the people who act on behalf of the entire THE GREEN PARTY…
peter
Sorry Peter, but I was basing my understanding of the exchange on what is on Stephen’s post which Suzy had linked to. And that starts with your tweet that “twitter is supposed to be an interactive service NOT an announcement service”.
I simply think it, twitter, is what someone chooses to make of it. Will they get more out of it if they interact more? Sure. But do people necessary have the time to do that? That’s up to them isn’t it.
The Vicar of Bray has responded to Mick Glynn
http://thevicarofbray.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/a-reply-the-curious-incident-of-the-post-on-mick-glynns-youtube-wonderspot/