The use of ICT by Swiss Cantonal Parties for Their Communication With Party Members and in Election Campaigning

This paper focuses on the Swiss cantonal and subcantonal parties' use of websites in their communication with the party base and citizens during elections and party politics in general. The authors present preliminary results from a current research project on the communicative structures and practices of Swiss cantonal parties, focusing on the relation between traditional and new media here. The paper provides a short overview of research activities in the field and outlines the potentials of ICT for political parties as discussed in literature. Based on available approaches for analyzing parties' online activities, the authors develop a framework for analyzing political websites that considers the dimensions of political parties' communicative goals as well as different forms of communication that are relevant to citizen participation. The presentation of preliminary results focuses on unique participatory elements inherent to cantonal and subcantonal party websites in the everyday context as well as in the context of (cantonal) campaigning and relates them to other functional dimensions of online communication. First results show that the parties examined do not tap the full potential of modern communication technology and techniques. Later, discussion of the content analysis will include the findings of interviews conducted with party officials and campaign volunteers, and the results of a survey of party members and supporters.