At last or for a change there is a reason why to congratulate Latvia for having done something important, interesting, useful and maybe even innovative. Latvia`s social network portal draugiem.lv has created a possibility to get more involved in comming EP elections.
The portal has created a possibility to get to know all Latvia`s EP election candidates, their promises, party programs, done activities, and to interact with them. Everybody have a chance to ask questions and to discuss them with the candidates and other persons from the network. Yes, the tric is that you have to be in the network to interact. Still it is possible to view all the discussions, candidates and just to get information about the elections by not being a member of the site.
All the project seems exciting and very up-to-date as the election candidates are also motivated to create their social network profiles. Already there are 13 known candidate profiles but in total 186 candidates are registered. So still long way to go for efficient interaction. In the same time it seems that the network is going to reach it`s aim and will gather the politicians under this platform for just only one reason - it is incredibly useful platform for any of them to gather voters. This social network is not some kind of small, insignificant portal. It gathers about probably half of Latvia`s inhabitants and most likely the majority of potential voters. Of course the audience is selective as most likely the youngsters would be the ones to notice that there is such a novelty in the portal but still they are having as much valuable vote as the older ones.
Another reason why this project is capturing attention and is likely to succeed is that Latvia`s probably the most influential and famous journalist Jānis Domburs will be the expert or kind of a referee of the project. He is going to raise the questions, comment on the given politician answers and will try to keep the discussion to it`s essence. I think that his participation is giving credibility to the project. Probably it will not be just a first election experiment on a social network but i hope already an influential project.
To see how it works will take some time, as the last election`s candidate lists were submitted just last week and as the project launched just today. I am very enthusiastic about it, although i can see some problematic sides as well. For example, there is a possibility to already express your support for a party but it doesn’t provide an anonymity. I guess it is not the purpose of the project to get the provisional election results from there, so it`s always possible to leave your decision for the real elections. In the same time it might be fun to get to know that some people are more political than we have thought previously.
Draugiem.lv project will also include local municipal elections and it`s candidates. Discusions and profiles of them will appear at the end of april when the last cadidate lists will be approved. This part of the project might be as well very much interesting as it might raise regional and more personalized discussions of what issues should be dealt with.
(12 votes, average: 3.58 out of 5)
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Very good, thank you very much for so interesting news! That could be really something stimulating for young people who like so much draugiem.lv and are too passive in politics.
Today`s information about this project says that the politicians have to pay to the social network for creating their profiles. This raises controversial feelings. First that its not just a project to increase society`s awareness, it is a project to earn or at least to pay back for the project creation. Interesting is that the costs of the these profiles will be different to different regions and cities. This doesnt much bother EP elections, but still it mean something.
Another thing that this network has created is that only grow-ups (+18) will be able to participate in the discussions. It also has it`s bright and dark sides.
And the last thing, it`s a pity but other media have started to call this project - a political advertisement. we`ll see, but i hope it will be something else.
Thank you, Marta, for summerizing it so well. What I like about this idea is realizing where the audience “live” and following them if they don’t follow you!!!
This article is rubbish.