Global Voices Online

Editor's Note: The following is a translation of an article written by Christian Espinosa at his page Cobertura Digital [ES] and used with permission.

Surely, this will be an experience to remember in terms of political campaigns using internet 2.0 tools: when the political party of Rafael Correa chooses to replace its traditional website for a community site of blogs, where each candidate for the Constituent Assembly has his or her own blog.

The result?

More than 100 blogs with the possibility of interaction in the comments section are competing for a greater presence on the primary page of the official site, in this case Alianza País [ES] according to the amount of updates of their proposals. For each candidate, there is a respective video presentation on You Tube along with the statistics of number of visits.

Party lines vs. proposals that leave its print

The advantage is that we can now see how much ex-Ministers (of Energy) Alberto Acosta [ES], (Communications) Monica Chuji [ES] or models like Roxana Quierolo [ES] (who only has two updates) worry about reaching their audiences without falling into the party line and taking into account their own administration of their blogs. What they publish depends on each one of them. Everything they say or promise will leave its print on the internet, for everyone to see.

Explosion of Blogs of the Campaign

This is a very unique case in the region because it is not every day that the Constituent Assembly takes place, where it can change the Constitution of a country. There are more than 4,000 candidates for the 120 slots for representatives. The elections will take place on September 30, 2007.

Alianza País, the government's political party, is not the only one with its own blogs. In Ecuador, there has been an explosion in the number of blogs [ES] and videos uploaded to YouTube by hundreds of candidates that are not well known. All it takes is a look at the tag “Asamblea Constituyente” in Technorati. The advantage is that we can see if they go back on what they have said. The difference is that these parties do not have an overall collective strategy, rather they are personal initiatives.

President Rafael Correa Announces the Creation of his Blog

Caption: Coming soon the blog of the citizen President Rafael Correa

Finally, Rafael Correa's communication strategy has become one of the strongest demonstration in the use of campaign 2.0 resources in the region. Not only does he have his own YouTube channel, Flickr account for his official photographer, but also a community (in the style of El País) with more than 100 blogs updated daily. The next step, according to the banner published on the official party page, is the creation of the official Presidential blog of Rafael Correa.

Questions

A journalist colleague that edits the political section raised a question about the blogs that are not part of the campaign. How can the independent blogs (not part of the campaign) be a part of the Assembly election process? Have they been part of the process? How?