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Kirsten Grieshaber, August 19, 2009
BERLIN — While German youths turn mainly to the Internet for election information, politicians including Chancellor Angela Merkel have yet to harness support online like President Barack Obama and others have done, according to a study released Wednesday.
A June survey conducted by the Forsa research agency found 77 per cent of Germans aged 18-29 were going online to find out what Germany's political parties are promising before Sept. 27 parliamentary elections.
But for the population overall, that drops to 45 per cent, according to the study, which did not break down results for other age groups.
Most young users get campaign news from Web sites run by newspapers and magazines, but also are increasingly using social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, the study found. It said 28 per cent of Germans aged 18-29 use social networks for campaign information, and 22 per cent read election blogs.
"Blogs and social online networks are becoming more and more important for the political culture, because they allow direct interaction between citizens and politicians," said August-Wilhelm Scheer, the head of Bitkom, the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media, presenting the study's findings.
Still, the Germans' use of the Internet is a far cry from American online participation during the U.S. election campaign in 2008, in which the presidential candidates recruited millions of followers on Twitter, Facebook or Flickr.
As of Wednesday, Merkel had 14,400 supporters on Facebook while her election challenger Frank-Walter Steinmeier had just over 5,200.
By comparison, President Barack Obama could boast more than 6.6 million Facebook supporters, while his Twitter stream has more than 1.8 million followers. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has more than 1 million. Merkel doesn't use Twitter at all.
"By using the Net, he (Obama) managed to mobilize people ... to create a movement in the real world," said Regine Bossert, a communications expert at the Free University of Berlin.
All German parties and candidates have Web sites and many update their blogs regularly, but it is not clear whether online campaigning could affect September elections significantly as only 65 per cent of all Germans use the Internet. Only 40 per cent of people older than 50 go online.
The Forsa agency surveyed 1,005 people of voting age in June for the poll, and did not give a margin of error.
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