Informatologia, Vol. 43 No. 4, 2010.
Preliminary communication
POLITICAL COMMUNICATION ON INTERNET IN CROATIA 2009. ANALYSIS OF WEB PORTALS OF ELECTION CANDIDATES FOR MAYORS: ZAGREB, SPLIT, RIJEKA AND OSIJEK
Ivan Balabanić
; The Institute of Social Sciences »Ivo Pilar«, Zagreb, Croatia
Marko Mustapić
; The Institute of Social Sciences »Ivo Pilar«, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The share of Internet users in Croatia, among the adult population in the period since 2002. until 2009. year increased from 17.1 percent to 38.6%. Such a sharp increase in the number of users of this medium brings with it a number of changes in the field of social communication, and thus in the field of political communication. Therefore, studies of political communication through the Internet are becoming more and more important for understanding all forms of political processes within society. In order to research online political communication in our country, we decided to analyze the content of Internet portals of candidates for the position of mayor of Zagreb, Split, Rijeka and Osijek. Analyzing content, we assessed the technological and interactive features of the portals and content of published articles on them. Findings showed that the analyzed portals didn't possess the technological and interactive elements that would enable candidates to involve wider Internet community and to accomplish two-way communication with them. Content on the analyzed portals was predominantly based only on monitoring the election activities of candidates and portals were opened shortly before the election started and they served only for the purposes of the election campaign. Despite rapid growth, number of internet users in Croatia is still lower than the average of Western European countries and the United States. Therefore, using general hypothesis we hypothesized that our politicians still do not use all the features of online media in election campaigns and therefore that Croatian political communication is not yet fully entered a third phase of development of political communication in a way that is defined by Blumler and Kvanagh (1999). This study confirmed our general hypothesis, but with sudden increase in the number of Internet users in Croatia it can be expected that in near future our politicians should put a much greater emphasis in electoral campaigns on Internet political communication.
Keywords
political communication; local elections; candidates for mayer; web; content analysis
Hrčak ID:
63967
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2010.
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