The following is basically a few ideas that I’ll be starting from for my Euroblog. If I’m truthful I just need to see what my page looks like with some text on it 
Here goes.
As part of the TH!NK ABOUT IT European Blogging Competition, I will be looking at the interaction between public awareness and media coverage of the European Elections this year. I think that at a relatively local level (North West of England), I can investigate in greater detail.
After doing a great deal of statistical research, I plan to visit towns and cities in my region and speak to all kinds of people. I will be trying to find out how conscious people are of the elections, how much they care, and why they think awareness and turnout is low.
My next stop will be the candidates. I’d like to get a few interviews or statements. These people will obviously be passionate about the elections, but do they have higher expectations than the electorate? How do they plan to catch their attention before the polls open? What do they think of the media – could TV and newspapers do more to publicise the elections?
I will also be speaking to fellow journalists throughout the blog. I would like to get interviews with writers who focus on Europe, both pro and sceptic. This might give me some different points of view to explore, or some good questions for politicians.
Most of my blog will be text, but I would like to experiment with video and audio as I haven’t yet used these outside of a classroom.
These elections will be the first time I have voted (excluding a local referendum) and as a 19-year old in England I will be feeling quite alone in my interest in European issues. Maybe on my travels I can inspire some of my classmates and friends to be interested enough to vote, however, looking at turnout figures from our last general election (61.4% in 2005), I won’t get my hopes up.
I’m looking forward to it!
(10 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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Actually I’m very interested what the folks will say about the European elections in the Northwest. Maybe you could also ask about their beliefs, I think it would bring up a lot of myth about the perception of Europe from the British Isles.
Thanks! When talking to average Joe on the street I was planning on doing a sort of mini-quiz to see what they already know and already think. There will certainly be some interesting myths about Europe that I can dig up. To be honest I think I might find that people in the Northwest feel even farther away from Europe than those in the South. But I won’t make any solid assumptions yet!