Web 2.0 in the German election campaigns
Barbara Witte 
Barbara.witte(at)hs-bremen.de
Professeure
Hochschule Bremen
Allemagne
The article at hand deals with the application of Web 2.0 on the websites of political and parliamentary parties of the German Federal Parliament during the “super election year 2009”. The results are part of a research project at the University of Applied Sciences Bremen that started in October 2003 and runs for three years. Presented are first results. The research project “Zukunft der Öffentlichkeit – Öffentlichkeit der Zukunft“ (future of the public sphere – public sphere of the future) financed by FuE-means of the University of Applied Sciences Bremen, aims to find out how the possibilities of Web 2.0 have led and lead to structural changes of public spheres. The central assumption is that the new possibilities evoke transformations. These transformations have in a way a coercive character as public spheres can be described as processes, as communicative tubes that have to change if a development is initiated at one point. Strong trigger in this respect are the new technologies that enable a low-threshold public sphere (cf. Schmidt, 2006). It is possible that an increasing use and application of Web 2.0 triggers some kind of second structural change (cf. Habermas, 1990) that is characterized by a row of consequences. How these consequences look like is still a matter of speculation. The scenarios range between euphoria and dystopia. One of the common suggestions is a re-democratization of public spheres (cf. Leggewie, Bieber, 2003; Welz, 2002). Opposed to that are empirical investigations on fragmentation and emerging knowledge gaps (cf. Bonfadelli, 1994). However, it is also possible to concretely consider the communication conditions underlying the situation and the suggestion of a “linguistification” of these conditions (cf. Yang, 2008; Egloff, 2002). In terms of scientific engagement, this means turning away from one-sided perspectives. They of course have their justification, but meanwhile might obstruct the analytical perspective. Consequently, the new structural change of the public sphere might be regarded simultaneously under the perspective of fragmentation and the perspective of re-democratization. Then it is questionable how these two perspectives interdigitate. A condition for each mode of engagement about potential consequences, scenarios, in short the factual change of structures, would firstly be an increasing use of Web 2.0. This encompasses not only the recipients of the so far mass mediated public spheres, a perspective that is multiply documented (cf. van Eimeren, 2007; Vowe, Emmer, Seifert, 2007), but also the so far producers of public spheres. These producers are composed of several groups. On the one hand the group of journalists, the media representatives, who are working and thinking until now in plain old categories (cf. Neuberger, Nuernbergk, Rischke, 2008), and on the other hand the representatives of political parties, associations, institutionalized movements etc. Thus, in a first step one has to clarify if and how far changes are observable on this layer. As a result, the research project investigates the application of Web 2.0 by the media, political parties, associations and new social movements. A first part of the investigation about political parties and the media in Bremen is completed and first results are published (cf. Witte, Rautenberg Auer, 2009). In a second step, we’ve now investigated the use of the web by political parties of the German Federal Parliament. The focus hereby lies on the use of the so called Web 2.0 applications. The core question of the research was which applications were used and whether the parties increasingly create participatory offers on their websites against the backdrop of the federal election campaigns. The results of this investigation are to be presented and discussed.
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