THE VOTER IS ONLY A TWEET AWAY MICRO BLOGGING DURING THE 2009 EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ELECTION CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS

In many western countries politics increasingly suffers from declining interest and declining participation in the political processes (Flickinger & Studlar, 2007). This not only applies to national politics but also, or even more so, to European politics. The European Union in particular is said to suffer from a severe democratic deficit (cf. van Os, Jankowski, & Vergeer, 2007). In general, support for the European Union is low: only a small majority (52%) supports its country’s EU membership (European Commission, 2009). This is reflected in the low voter turnout (43%) for the EP elections. The Netherlands, although its population supports the European Union (EU) membership quite strongly (78%), the voter turnout of 37% is well below the EU average. Even though support for the EU remains relatively stable, it is not clear whether the steadily decline in voter turnout is reversible. One popular campaigning tool is Twitter a combination of micr-blogging and social networking. This study focuses on how politicians in the election campaign use micro-blogging activity and online networking. Also, some explanations are explored