Abstract
Democracy and political practices have already gone a long way since the birth of Internet: online campaigns, online votes, speeches on videos that can be watched over and over on video-sharing websites. Internet has transformed the reality of the political bubble in many ways and nowadays, and since 2001, the web 2.0 has made a sensational breakthrough into our lives. It has changed again our habits when using the Internet: dotcoms changed from being simple one way information resources into more functional and interactive resources where users concur to participate. From this perspective, ways of communicating have become, from then on, boundless, and as Internet is spread all around the world and covers more than one household out of two, it gives politics a new approach in the way it can reach people and arouse their interest.
In Europe, the turnout at the polls keep decreasing . In 2009, 53% of European Union citizens stated that they were "not at all interested" or "rather not interested" in the EU elections. Indeed, turnout has decreased at every ballot since direct elections were first held in 1979. 2004 set the latest record, with a combined EU turnout of just 45.5%. This major decrease happened despite an expensive promotional campaign and the increasing use of multimedia technology to spread awareness. The EU, as every political organization, is struggling to stimulate citizen interest, whether it uses NTIC or not.
Citizens feel left behind, all social classes feel abandoned, and politics is losing credibility at a crazy rate, latest polls show. And it is a trite saying that in a free country public opinion rules.
W. Lance Bennett says in his article "Changing citizenship in the Digital age": "candidates seldom appeal directly to young voters on their own terms about their concerns; politicians have poisoned the public well with vitriol and negative campaigning, and young people see the media filled with inauthentic performances from officials who are staged by professional communication managers". And the press and the enthusiasm for celebrities do not help: politics are not taken as seriously as they used to be. They are regarded as random celebrities; the press brings their private life out into the open as their tax frauds become the daily bread and popular headlines. We have come into an era of knowledge and speed. Internet users in France are able to watch videos of an earthquake in China via Twitter before any journalists have even heard of it. Information flow is incredibly fast and people constantly need new information on the latest scoops.
