Media experts Sead Dzigal and Darko Buldioski provided joint analysis of the web presence of both the incumbent party, VMRO-DPMNE, and the main opposition party, SDSM:

Good: use of blogs, YouTube channels, Myspace, Facebook, Hi5 etc.
[…]
Good also: use of video, audio, posting documents, comments, etc.

Most of—it seems all—the campaign materials are available online, too. The websites receive regular updates… and heavily use free online services, apparently to cut costs, which seems like a smart move.

Bad: the “social” portion is absent in their use of social media. The blog posts are mainly transcripts of their rally speeches, and the content is basically recycled from their TV commercials and other uses such as to be fed to traditional media, analysts, journalists and similar actors, but not blogs per se. The posts are long, different audiences are targeted in each post, and personal experiences or input from the politicians is lacking. Even the impressions on their events are lacking, depriving their blogs of the essential individual, personal perspective. The video clips are made for TV and not for vlogs, print campaigns which do not fit viral media, photos as décor and not as source of (inside) information. […]

Probably these are the reasons why these blogs do not receive many visits, there are but a few comments, and are simply left out of the general political discussion (for the time being).

In conclusion […], it's great that political parties adopted many new services and channels for electoral propaganda, but the effects will probably be quite small, because the websites are used as web repositories or warehouses for loads of materials tirelessly produced for the electoral campaigns in Macedonia.

In a comment to the same post, prominent local blogger Ribaro, wrote (MKD):

The most interesting thing about the bunch of blogs created by political parties for this election is that they have some incompetent idiot appointed as administrator responding to user comments. For instance a response to some relevant question by such person was: “And who's asking?” Bottom! As long as they belittle the power of the blog and the blogosphere, their blogs will receive minuscule visitor flow and only by their praising party members. The situation was the same with the elections in 2006. They advanced in quantity, but not an inch in quality.

Many bloggers reacted to a statement by Greek Foreign Minister that even mentioning the existence of Macedonian language and ethnicity is “not helpful” to solving the name issue, perceiving it as continuation of the policy of ethnocide. Zharko Trajanovski, referred to the related U.S. Dept. of State Briefing, extracting the most interesting parts (MKD).

In the same vein, dozens of bloggers promoted the video of the song “Postojam” (”I Exist”), by embedding it in their own posts and even reposting copies of it on YouTube. The video features scenes from documentary films about the ethnic cleansing of Macedonians during the Greek Civil War of 1946-49, accompanied with humanistic lyrics: “I exist… All is forgiven: even your wish for me to be no more.”

The author of the blog Agnes wrote (MKD):

Since its official release, the video of the single “Postojam” by the pop rock singer Miyatta received wide media coverage and it is a topic of discussion among the Macedonian population all around the world. Interest for the English translation of the lyrics and releasing it abroad has also been shown. Regardless of the context, the video has become something worth a comment. Those who were familiar with that part of Macedonia's history congratulated Miyatta for delivering this audio-visual expression. Those who see such pictures for the first time, think that it is too painful to be true. Some believe that this is just an attempt at attention-seeking. All kinds of positive and negative comments are yet to be heard. I am happy that the number of people who were indifferent towards “Postojam” is rather small.

Images of sorrow and exile on the one hand, and images of unity and pride on the other make for a rather authentic representation of Macedonia.

The past is not to be revived, but to be outgrown.
Let us outgrow it, but first,
Let us know it!
Macedonia exists.

In the other direction, the blog Drugarche posted translations of articles from the Greek press, including cartoons [MKD]. A number of bloggers also praised the interview of the Macedonian director Milcho Manchevski [GRE], given to the Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia, and posted links to its English translations. Some offered more historical information from ancient books [MKD] and Western newspaper archives [MKD], as well as about the possible origins of the Greek flag.

But, most importantly, blogs have proved to be the primary vehicle for distributing information on grassroots peace-building. The news about the upcoming visit of about 50 Greek peace activists to Macedonian capital Skopje scheduled for May 17, 2008, appeared [MKD] on the influential Vuna blog first:

This is not an attempt to stoke fires of the Macedonian nationalist sentiments. This is not a call to stone embassies, supermarkets or whatever.

On the contrary, this is a call to participate in an event intended as opposition to all the madness. Greek citizens are first and foremost human beings, and most of them have nothing to do with their retrograde and fascizoid state policy, nor with the hordes of morons who harass people on the highways. At the same time, not all Macedonian citizens are hotheads who “hate every Greek thing” and can't wait to throw stones on the Liaison office.

[…]

Peace, love, empathy!

The festival took place on April 12, on a street lined with Japanese cherry trees in full bloom, next to Skopje's main square. The program consisted of martial arts demonstrations, reciting of haiku in Macedonian language, accompanied by music played on Japanese flute, making of origami, writing the names of participants in Japanese calligraphy, and tasting healthy products made of Japanese fungi.

Thanks to the social networking within the community, dozens of bloggers used the event to socialize, including several who came from other cities. Some of them, like Bi, Volan, Strumjan, and neW1, posted extensive photo-galleries afterwards, while others wrote posts with most favorable impressions. Nadezna and HibernusCorvus, posted their reasons why they didn't attend.

Members of Samurai Dojo in action. Photo by Volan.

Bi, one of the organizers and an Iaidō practitioner, wrote [MKD] about her insider experience:

The origami were quite successful, and were done in three booths… [for samurai hats, cranes, and cats]. The kids were very happy, and many of them took their samurai hats to Nahomi [Japanese lady who did calligraphy] to write their names in Japanese.

Nahomi got genuine Macedonian experience because the audience did not allow her to catch her breath. They crowded around her, handing papers under her nose to write their names in Japanese, without any order. They even overturned her ink. She was confused because the people could not form a line, but accepted all requests with grace and impeccable manners…

The haiku turned out great, and the three guests read poetry by classic Japanese masters and by Macedonian poets. Some in the audience turned a deaf ear on this, and complained of boredom… Other audience members provided an unpleasant experience of rude curiosity, by grabbing and even drawing the swords and the bokken from the participants' hands…

I hope next year we'll have an even more interesting and more beautiful program, with more elements, and the city will help with more than just providing space, and the consulate will provide more than just moral support. We had great time anyway, even when the uncultured mishaps mentioned above are taken into account :)

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