methodology - dec 2009

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Methodology 1 st Draft

Methodology

1st DRAFT Dec 2009

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Introduction

The literature review has illustrated a number of concepts of relevance to political party

organisation in the UK. I have argued that the party decline thesis could be in part overcome

through the application of technology to make parties more responsive to their membership. If

parties adopt Web 2.0 applications, and the Web 2.0 ethos, then this could go some of the

way to establishing a two way relationship between party supporters and party elites which

may provide an opportunity to reverse the party decline trend in the UK.

This chapter is designed to outline the research design and methodology used to investigate

Web 2.0 as it pertains to party organisation in the UK. It will:

develop an overall research question and outline the specific hypotheses that will

need to be tested to answer this question.

define the variables needed to test these hypothesis, outlining each variable and

fitting it into a research framework.

outline the methods necessary to complete this research

This chapter will also discuss the limitations inherent in this methodology including the

extent to which the findings can be generalised and causal claims made.

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Research Design

The literature review has suggested that political parties in the UK are in decline. They have

fewer members, there is less partisan sentiment and this could ultimately damage the

legitimacy of political parties in the UK. We have also seen how the Web has so far only had

a limited effect on reinvigorating political parties, instead seemingly only empowering the

elite within the party and not translating to the rank and file. Finally, the emergence of Web

2.0 suggests that this limited role for the web may be changing and that the tenets of Web 2.0

could lead to more open and responsive political parties.

The next step is to try and investigate the relationship between Web 2.0 and Party Decline on

the basis of the hypothesis that in parties that are highly Web 2.0 orientated there should be

greater grassroots involvement in the party.

This is a difficult claim to make however. Any one of a thousand factors could be impacting

the rate of participation in political parties so any findings linking Web 2.0 to the reversal of

party decline will be difficult to support.

This is further complicated by the following limitations:

A lack of hard data about parties web use, necessitating the collection of primary data

for each case

A fast pace of change, meaning that any one measurement is only a snapshot and

risks missing an overall picture, necessitating a longitudinal element to the analysis

Differing local factors which limit cross national comparisons making it difficult to

create generalised explanations

The difficult nature of the data to codify, the concept of a Web 2.0 ethos for instance

is difficult to operationalise in numerical terms and remains a subjective judgement

The embryonic nature of Web 2.0, it would be unlikely that such a new phenomenon

would have made a definitive impact yet

In recognition of these limitations, this study does not seek to make general claims about the

impact of Web 2.0 on trends of party decline. Instead this study aims to investigate the use

and effects of Web 2.0 in a limited setting, a single party system and a limited number of

political parties.

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Research Question:

What does Web 2.0 mean for UK party organisation?

Sub Questions:

What factors are driving parties to adopt Web 2.0 ?

Are political parties adopting the Web 2.0 ethos or just the associated applications?

How successful has Web 2.0 been so far in connecting party elites and rank and file

members?

Based on the outcomes of the literature review I have developed the following testable

hypotheses:

h1 Less established parties are more likely to be Web 2.0 orientated

h2a More established parties make greater use of Web 2.0 applications

h2b Less established parties will make greater use of the Web 2.0 ethos

h3 Web 2.0 orientated parties will seen as more responsive to their supporters

NULL HYPOTHESIS: That all political parties will adopt both Web 2.0 applications and

ethos in the same way

Specifically these hypotheses encapsulate the overall view that Web 2.0 will be more

common and effective in smaller and less established political parties, outside the political

mainstream. The dominant political parties, Labour, Conservative and Lib-Dems are likely to

adopt top down, campaign based approaches to the Web, approaches which are largely

incompatible with the Web 2.0 ethos as I have described. While they may have the resources

available to use the latest technology and maintain a significant Web 2.0 presence, resulting

in higher Web 2.0 application use, they will be unlikely to relinquish control to the user that

the Web 2.0 ethos would require.

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In order to answer to test these hypotheses I have developed a three phase method:

Phase Goals Variables MethodsI Measure the drivers of

party change

Party Size

Party Goals

Party Centrality

Incumbency

Ideology

Web 1.0 Experience

Desk Based

Research

Interview Data

II Measure the use of Web

2.0 applications and

ethos

Web 2.0 applications

Web 2.0 ethos

Hyperlink Network

Analysis

Interview Data

III Perceptions of partyresponsiveness as a

result of Web 2.0

Elite perceptions of theeffect of Web 2.0 on party

responsiveness

Rank and file perceptions

of the effect of Web 2.0

on party responsiveness

Survey Data

Interview Data

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Case Selection

The decision to concentrate on the UK as the basis of this study is based on a number of

factors. Firstly, limiting the study to a single party system will provide directly comparable

results between parties, which would not be the case if parties operated within a number of

differing party systems. US parties for instance face different stimuli to UK parties, despite

both being two party systems. A number of European countries however practice multi-party

politics which again changes the factors that influence party behaviour. By concentrating on

the UK to some extent it is possible to knock out these systemic effects that could threaten to

overwhelm the study.

Secondly, the UK provides a good cross section of party types, featuring a two party system

with firmly established parties dominating the national parliament. At the fringes however

there are a large number of smaller and single-issue parties that could provide interesting case

studies. These provide a good sample of both left and right wing views. This is perhaps down

to the wide number of voting systems in place in the UK, first past the post in parliamentary

elections and proportional representation at the European level. Despite the absence of fringe

parties from the main parliament, there is still the possibility for minor parties to do well at

the European level as demonstrated by recent gains made by The British National Party.

Finally, the researcher has several existing connections with activists in the UK system which

will hopefully lead to fully access and therefore greater detail at the interview stage.

Resources and time mean that this study can only afford to look a limited number of political

parties. There are currently 334 political parties registered with the Electoral Commission

(excluding Northern Ireland), and care is needed to pick the case studies which will best allow

us to test the variables we have constructed (Electoral Commission, 2009).

The degree to which a party is in government, either locally, nationally or at a European level

may have a significant impact on a parties use of the Web for organisation, cases have been

chosen to reflect this. The current government (at the time of writing The Labour Party)

should be included, as well as the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats, both of

which could potentially have a role in any government formed after the next General

Election.

Between them the three main parties also address the party ideology variable, consisting of a

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party of the left, the centre and the right.

In order to examine the impact of party size I intend to include the Green Party and the British

National Party as smaller representatives of both the left and the right respectively. These

parties also represent different party goals than the big three parties, with the Green

movement in particular associated with internal democracy goals.

The far right have traditionally been seen one of the key benefactors of the Web and The

British National Party will provide a potentially interesting window onto how far right parties

are using the web. There are ethical issues associated with interacting with such a

controversial party, and additionally there is a risk of none cooperation at the interview stages

of the research. Despite this however, in selecting an extremist group could reveal strategies

and impacts not experienced by other groups.

Finally, the recently formed Pirate Party UK provides an example of a party which has been

founded within the last year and seemingly has a very strong web based component to its

strategy. This could well be the closest example in the UK to Margetts model of a Cyber

Party and is therefore worthy of further study.

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I Measuring the drivers of party change

The literature review leads us to expect that there might be a number of factors that either

promote Web 2.0 or limit its use in party organisation. In phase one each case is categorised

according to a number of variables.

Much of the information needed to do this will be acquired through desk-based research

including reviewing published material, websites and manifestos. In addition, interviews will

be used where any information is unavailable.

Party Size

Major (>30% vote share)

Minor (10-20% vote share)

Fringe (


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In order to do this I drew on previous work which focussed on measuring party change and

selected two areas in particular which best represent the level of power devolved to party

membership (Janda, 1980).

Selecting the National Leader

No national party leader can be identified.

The leader is selected by vote of party identifiers or supporters.

He is selected by vote of party members, a smaller group than above.

He is selected by a national convention or congress, the delegates to which represent

regional or local party organizations. He is selected by the parliamentary delegation of the party.

He is selected by a national convention or congress, the delegates to which are

appointed or primarily determined by the national party organization.

He is selected by the national executive committee or party council subject to

ratification by some lower levels of the party.

He is selected by the national executive committee or party council without further

review of the decision; selections include change in leaders as a result of "power

struggles" within the top leaders group.

He is selected by his predecessor; selections include the situation in which the party

was created the incumbent leader and no apparent means transferring leadership have

been established.

Formulating policy

Responsibility for formulating policy is diffused throughout the party; little or no

structure is imposed on this aspect of party activity.

Major policy stances are commonly determined by polling party members.

Local party organizations enact policy resolutions, argue them at the national level

(usually the party conference or convention), and frequently win changes in party

policy.

Major policy positions are formulated at the national level, but they are submitted to

lower levels of the party (local or regional organizations) for approval.

Local party organizations often enact policy resolutions and submit them for nationalconsideration, but open argument in behalf of the resolutions is not a common

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practice, and decision on the resolutions is not required.

Major policy positions are determined by a national party congress, conference, or

convention composed of delegates from local or regional organizations; policy

positions may be stated provisionally by individual party leaders, but approval of the

position by the party congress is required before the policy statement is considered to

be effectively binding as party policy.

Major policy positions are determined by the national committee, party council, or

parliamentary party organizations; these positions are regarded as "party policy"

without need for further approval by other party organs.

Major policy positions are determined and announced by the party leader or a small

subgroup of the national committee, for example, an executive committee or

"politburo." These positions are effectively regarded as "party policy" without need

for approval by other party organs. (Note that a distinction must be drawn between

the leaders policy--sometimes pronounced by a leader who is also the nation's chief

executive--and the party's policy. With respect to the United States, for example, the

president is not empowered to formulate or create party policy, although he may

implement it. The distinction is whether the announced policy is widely regarded as

party policy or the personal policy of the officeholder, acting in his capacity as a

governmental official and policy maker.)

Party Goals

Vote Maximisation

Office Maximisation

Intra-Party Democracy

Policy-Seeking

Rommele predicted that web use amongst political parties would not be one size fits all

instead it would be influenced by specific party goals. Using Stroms 1999 taxonomy, she

suggested that whilst Vote maximising and office maximising parties would use the web in a

top down fashion, parties orientated towards members and policy (intra-party democracy and

policy seeking) would have a more bottom up or equal relationship (Rommele, 2003). Based

on this we would expect Vote and office maximising parties to continue using the Web in the

Web 1.0 fashion, as a tool for disseminating information to their followers. In Intra-party

democracy or policy orientated parties we might see a more open attitude that is a better fit

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for the Web 2.0 ethos.

Incumbency

No representation at any level

Local level representation

European level representation

Westminster representation

This variable is based on the expectation that political parties with more representatives in

higher levels of government will have by definition been most successful in the old media

environment. This might create a larger barrier to change, as parties will have more to do to

adapt to the new environment.

Additionally, this may be a factor as incumbent governments can be seen as on the defensive

to a far greater extent than opposition. This may lead to them seeking greater control of party

communication, something which would be limited in a Web 2.0 orientated party.

Finally, this variable was included to account for any possible change of government at the

2010 election which may provide an opportunity to investigate the effects of incumbency ondifferent parties. If there were to be a change of government for instance, how would that

effect the online strategy of the former opposition?

Ideology

Left wing

Right wing Extreme Left wing

Extreme Right wing

This variable is intended to account for any kind of ideological bias in Web 2.0 use.

Web 1.0 Experience

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No Web 1.0 experience

Some Web 1.0 experience

High degree of Web 1.0 experience

This variable is designed to measure how the party has used the web prior to the availability

of Web 2.0 tools and whether or not there is a process of socialisation in action. Are

organisations that already make use of the Web more likely to adopt the Web 2.0 ethos or are

they restrained by virtue of having an existing way of doing things?

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II Measuring Web 2.0

The question of measuring the adoption of Web 2.0, the dependent variable, requires more

methodological nuance than simple desk based research can provide. Based on the literature

review, in measuring the dependent variable in this situation we need to acknowledge that in

reality we are discussing two separate variables, firstly, the use of Web 2.0 applications in the

party and secondly the adoption of the Web 2.0 ethos.

Measuring Web 2.0 applications

Party initiated Web 2.0 use

Internal use e.g. intranet, email

Web 1.0 Party site

Web 2.0 party site

Candidate run sites/blogs

Party run blogs

Party use of Web 2.0 platforms e.g. Facebook, YouTube

Independent initiated Web 2.0 use

Independently run party site

Independent party blogs

Independent use of Web 2.0 platforms e.g. Facebook, YouTube

Previous approaches to measuring the use of Web 2.0 applications have concentrated on

examining what options are available to users of the party site and various candidate sites

(Jackson and Lilleker, 2009). The reality of the situation however is much more complex, as

well as the party site and various candidate sites; an associated network develops around each

party of sites that are connected by hyperlinks. These links can be multi directional so outside

sites can link in (inlinks) just as the party site can provide links outwards (outlinks). Simply

looking at the options available to users on the party site would miss the broader sphere of

associated web sites.

Consider for example an individual interested in joining an environmental group. They look

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at the web page for their local environmental group and from there they might find a link to a

national environmental group and from there they might in turn find a link to the Green Party.

If any of the sites on this path allowed user contributions they could be considered (and I

would argue they should be considered) as contributing to debate within the party. Just

because a user is not participating in a party site does not mean they are not participating in

the party on some level.

In order to measure the impact of Web 2.0 it is necessary to map the broader network

surrounding the party and assess its composition. If the sites surrounding the party allow users

to contribute through Web 2.0 type applications then we can say that the party uses more Web

2.0 applications, less opportunities means less Web 2.0 applications.

In order to do this I intend to use hyperlink network maps in order to identify the scope of the

online network associated with each party. Based on this map I will then analyse the

component websites in the network and categorise them according to the presence of Web 2.0

applications.

Web 2.0 ethos

The Party does not embrace the Web 2.0 ethos

The party has made some commitment to the Web 2.0 ethos

The party has fully embraced the Web 2.0 ethos.

Measuring an ethos is a different subject matter to measuring a hyperlink network, as

intention is far more difficult to distinguish than the raw facts of the network analysis.

The measurement of Web 2.0 ethos will be based on the outcome of two aspects of the partyorganisation. Firstly the mixture of independent and party led websites within the partys

online network. Secondly, and more importantly, a series of elite interviews with actors

within the network designed to assess how committee the party is to incorporating the

submissions of individual party supporters into the day to day running of the party and what

opportunities to contribute are available.

In a highly Web 2.0 orientated party we could expect to see online world taking a central role

in party organisation, contributing to internal debate and policy making. In a less Web 2.0orientated party we might expect to see online contributions carry less weight.

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III Measuring Perceptions of Web 2.0

The final element of the research design to examine any differences between the most Web

2.0 orientated parties and the least Web 2.0 orientated parties in terms of the relationship

between party elites and the rank and file.

If Web 2.0 is promoting a greater degree of responsiveness in political parties, strengthening

the link between the party elite and the party rank and file, then this should be evident from

discussing the issue with party elites and the party rank and file of the differing case studies.

Parties identified in phase II as being highly Web 2.0 orientated, especially in relation to the

Web 2.0 ethos, should exhibit greater responsiveness. It is important to test this hypothesis

amongst both party elites and the party rank and file as they may well have differing

interpretations.

Elite perceptions

Party elite views Web 2.0 as strengthening the relationship between the elite and the

rank and file

Party elite views Web 2.0 as having no impact on the relationship between the elite

and the rank and file

Party elite views Web 2.0 as weakening the relationship between the elite and the

rank and file

Measuring the perception of Web 2.0 amongst party elites will be done through the use of

interviews, either face to face or online through mediums such as Skype and IRC.

Rank and file perceptions

Party rank and file views Web 2.0 as strengthening the relationship between the elite


Party rank and file views Web 2.0 as having no impact on the relationship between

the elite and the rank and file

Party rank and file views Web 2.0 as weakening the relationship between the elite


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Measuring the perceptions of the party rank and file will be done through the use of data

collected from a blog user survey based on the principal blog sites of political parties.

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Methods

Desk Based Research

Developing an understanding of the variables outlined in phase one will be achieved

primarily through the use of desk based research. For each case a profile was developed

which described the position of the party in relation to the factors identified. This was done

through a number of sources:

Existing research on political parties

Online research of the party

Interviews with party workers

Reviewing published party material including manifestos

Network Ethnography

Network Ethnography is a particular approach to the study of networks that involves

conducting interviews with subjects based on the results of network analysis. As it pertains to

social network analysis network ethnography was an approach championed by Howard:

Network Ethnography is the process of using ethnographic field methods on cases

and field sites selected using social network analysis

(Howard, 2002) page 561

This approach was also later followed by Biddix and Park who used the approach to map the

Living Wage Campaign which occurred on US university campuses recently (Biddix and

Park, 2008).

By combining both network analysis and interview data network ethnographists are able to

benefit from the overall understanding that comes of knowing which nodes in a network are

key from a structural point of view whilst at the same time have access to the kind of

qualitative data which is missing from a simple network analysis.

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There are two component parts to this kind of approach, Hyperlink Network Analysis (HNA)

and interviews.

Hyperlink Network Analysis (HNA)

Most political parties in the UK uses the web to a greater or lesser extent. In order to map the

online sphere of each party it is first necessary to draw a boundary around the partys online

space in order to isolate exactly what space we are looking at.

Park identifies two principal methods for collecting information on online spaces, manual

observation and automatic collection (Park, 2003).

Manual observation of online spaces is possible and has a number of possible advantages over

automated methods, including the ability to filter information at source rather than attempting

to work with datasets which a littered with irrelevant links. Ultimately though the enormous

Labour cost and possibility of coder error or bias make this method a none starter for anything

but the most simple of online spaces. On any given day a site such as the Conservative Party

could be expected to contain something in the order of around 800 hyperlinks. The problems

of this method develop exponentially if anything beyond a one step analysis is undertaken,

given that each subsequent site included in the analysis could also add a massive number of

links.

This leaves us with the automatic method as effectively the only choice. Park also identifies

problems associated with using computer programs to collect information, principally that

each tool is idiosyncratic and designed in many cases to examine specific questions rather

than as a neutral tool. To this I would also add that a computer-assisted method will include

every link on a page, not simply the relevant ones. This can be an enormous problem if for

instance (as is highly likely) a link leads to a large media site. These sites typically contain

hundreds of thousands of links, almost none of them to relevant material. Despite thesedrawbacks, a computer-aided method is considered the best way to undertake this kind of

analysis.

This is difficult both conceptually and practically. The linking structure of the online

environment means that node or site can be linked to any other, creating a theoretically

massive space online in which party business can be discussed and commented on. In order to

keep the project manageable it is necessary to come up with a way to sample the content of

online spaces that allows for direct comparison between political parties.

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This is a problem that confronts any kind of social network analysis; even small friendship

groups cannot be charted without making assumptions about what constitutes friendship, or

else relying solely on the subjective interpretations of participants:

Any boundaries identified by the researcher through an aggregation of these

individual perceptions may be wholly artificial simple artefacts of question

wording. If on the other hand, the researcher explicitly defines close by, for

example, frequency of interaction he or she will be imposing a definition of

closeness on the respondents and the boundaries of friendship may again be

artificial.

(Scott, 2000, pg. 53)

In drawing the boundaries we must consider whether a positional or a reputational approach is

the most appropriate course (Scott, 2000). In a positional analysis we will look for sites that

are there by virtue of their location at the centre of the network. A reputational approach on

the other hand would be based to a greater degree on the researchers intuition and therefore be

likely to include a wider seed set at the cost of threatening to introduce a bias in the sample.

From a hyperlink network analysis point of view as opposed to the more established social

network analysis, the question of finding an appropriate starting points for analysis is

particularly acute (Ackland et al., 2007). Most research in this area has used at least some

degree of the reputational approach, relying on the judgement of the researcher as to what is

and what is not important (Ackland et al., 2007, Hepburn, 2009).

In the political context the limitations of the positional approach are clear. Firstly most parties

only have a single official web presence i.e. the party site, around which all other party

activity, either official or unsanctioned, revolves. This will inherently limit the ability of thecrawler to find links within the network given that it only has a single seed site.

Secondly, it is hard to expand upon this single starting point in a value free way, there is no

defined structure to party online networks or indeed any consistency in the way these

networks are organised between parties.

Nevertheless, the advantages offered by the positional approach, principally the consistency

for comparing between networks, means that it is worth attempting to include some kind of positional aspect when developing seed sets.

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The conclusion is that the best way to develop a seed set would be through a crawl based on

the parties principal web site. Using the resulting database it should be possible to clean up

the data and using researcher judgement where necessary retain only relevant i.e. political

sites. This should produce a seed set which is large enough to capture a significant portion of

the network and yet minimise topic drift.

My intention is to perform multi stage web crawl on each of the subject parties several times

over the course of a single year (2010). This cleaned data will then be fed back into the web

crawler and used as the basis for a second crawl much larger than the first. The resulting data

will then be filtered and any URL which does not have more than two links to a seed site will

be removed (co-link analysis).

There are a number of programs available both online and offline which serve as tools for

mapping hyperlinks online. By following or crawling each hyperlink on a web page the

software can then begin to show which sites are linked to which other sites online. In this case

I have chosen to use the Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks (VOSON) as

the principal tool by virtue of the fact that the crawler is able to handle large seed sets and

large resultant networks, and the presence of a tool for mapping inlinks to sites as well as

outlinks, something which is important in redressing the inherent imbalance present in only

mapping outlinks from a political party i.e. that we are only looking at sites the central party

organisation has linked to, and not those sites which have chosen to link into the network. It is

this element which will allow the distinction to be made between party initiated Web 2.0 use

and independent initiated web 2.0 use.

The end result will be a set of URLs which should hopefully be a reasonable sample of the

nodes contained within the online sphere of each party.

Using this list of URLs, each site will be analysed and catalogued dependent on its content.

The proportions of sites in each category will provide a reliable and comparative method with

which to examine the composition of each partys online sphere.

As party networks are likely to change overtime, in particular around election times and times

of national issues, I propose that a crawl be conducted on each of the case studies four times

over 2010. This will allow for any changes which take place over time. I am also hopeful that

this will allow us to see any changes which take place around the time of the next GeneralElection which is likely to be held in May 2010.

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An additional complication in hyperlink analysis is likely to capture tools which have their

own URL, and not tools embedded within other services e.g. a page within Facebook or a

specific YouTube video. As a result it will be necessarily to examine the large Web 2.0

mainstays separately in order to build up a picture of party Web 2.0 use in this area. This will

require further research outside the context of the hyperlink analysis, using tools available

within the Web 2.0 services themselves.

The dominant Web 2.0 services amongst political parties in the UK are: Twitter, Facebook,

Flickr and YouTube, and these will be used as the starting point for examining party

involvement. The initial phase of desk based research will also hopefully act as a cue as to

where to look for both party and independent use of Web 2.0 platforms.

Each of these services has its own arrangement and so will produce results which are only

comparable with other parties using that service. It would not be appropriate for example to

compare the amount of members of a facebook group with the amount of subscribers to a

YouTube channel as YouTube has significant barriers to entry above Facebook. Each service

is only comparable with itself and not wider services.

Interviews

On its own a hyperlink tells us very little about the intentions of its author:

link

A sample of html code containing a hyperlink to Manchester Universitys website

The fundamental question and most stinging criticism of hyperlink network analysis is

explaining the meaning of crawled hyperlinks. By it self a hyperlink is simply a sting of textwith little or no inherent meaning, it does not for example reveal the intentions of the person

who wrote it (Biddix and Park, 2008, Park, 2003). A hyperlink could exist for a number of

reasons, for example to link to interesting material, material that the author agrees with,

disagrees with, or wishes to ridicule. The notion is further complicated when one considers

that some links may only exist because the author feels compelled to return the favour to

some one who has linked to them.

Ackland et al identify five possible explanations for the existence of a hyperlink

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Information provision

Network building or strengthening

Identity building

Audience sharing

Message amplification

Any one of which could explain the presence of a link between different nodes in the network

(Ackland et al., 2007).

In order to get past this problem, network ethnography tells us that it is important to go

beyond the networking mapping stage and build upon the results to arrive at a more detailed

picture of the mechanisms at work within the network.

I intend to use the data captured in the hyperlink network analysis to inform the choice of

subjects for a series of interviews with online actors, targeting those identified as being the

most prominent in the network as well as a selection of smaller actors who may be less

prominent but potentially offer useful information.

In this case this will mean conducting a series of interviews with those who either write or run

the websites which feature prominently within each network. These interviews will focus on:

Where the website fits in the overall network

How the website relates to party politics

The role of the website in hosting debate and influencing policy making

Interviews will take a semi-structured conversational style and will most likely be conducted

over a number of media, including email, online messaging, and face-to-face where

necessary.

Where possible I will favour the use of instant messaging or email due to the ease with which

conversations can be stored and referred back to without the need for extensive transcription.

In addition there are a number of possible options coming in the future which might offer

useful alternatives, including the development of Google Wave

(https://wave.google.com/wave/ ) which has potential for online interviews.

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Using electronic media for interview purposes can have a number of advantages such as

allowing participants to respond in their own time to questions, which can result in more

detailed and informative answers. The obvious corollary of which and downside of is that

answers become less spontaneous. As a general principal however these interviews are not

intended to trick respondents to saying something they should not or dont want to, not only

for ethical reasons, but also to prevent complications emerging at later stages through

participants withdrawing co-operation. An additional advantage of these text based form of

communication is that they do not need to be transcribed, a time consuming, costly and

potentially inaccurate process.

Survey Data

The final element of this methodology is a survey of blog users.

Developed in conjunction with the Hansard Society, the 2009/10 blog user survey was

intended as a small scale survey of the users of political blogs. Amongst many things the

survey includes questions about the participants relationship with the party, specifically

whether or not they feel closer to the party as a result of using the blog. This could be used as

a general indicator of the level of feeling amongst the party rank and file. The theory beingthat in parties which are more Web 2.0 orientated the feeling of connection between user and

party should be stronger than in none Web 2.0 orientated parties.

There are a number of limitations to this survey:

Self selecting sample as participants are encouraged to take part through online

blogs, the survey will only captured the opinions of those who visit those blogs. It

will not capture information about the wider population of the party rank and file,

either online or offline.

Limited sample size Although the survey is yet to be completed, the initial

indications are that the size of the resulting dataset is likely to be quite limited. In the

case of the Liberal Democrats only XX responses were received, despite the full co-

operation of the blog managers. If this level of response was to persist across the

other parties then the resulting datasets would not be sufficiently large to generalise

from.

Cross party comparison In addition to the problems of the size of datasets, not all

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parties are comparable. The Pirate Party for instance does not have a prominent blog

on which to base the survey. The Liberal Democrat Survey was offered on Lib Dem

Voice, a prominent Lib Dem blog, but one that also has strong links to the Liberal

Democrat Party. If the survey were to be run for the Conservatives, the prominent

blogs to use would be either Iain Dale or ConsevativeHome, both of which are

relatively independent from the Conservative Party. Comparison between party

initiated web use such as Lib Dem Voice and supporter initiated web use such as

ConservativeHome would be limited.

Despite these limitations however, the use of survey data presents the best way available of

investigating the third element of the research design and exploring the links between party

Web 2.0 use and the effect or the perceived effect it is having on party responsiveness.

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Conclusion

This chapter has outlined a methodology to address the causes and impacts of Web 2.0 use as

an organisational tool in UK political parties.

It has drawn on the literature review to produce a set of research questions which address

some of the key issues associated with Web 2.0 in an organisational context, including the

relationship between party elites and the party rank and file composed of both members and

supporters.

In order to address these questions I have proposed a three phase research design consisting

of:

Measuring party organisational factors

Measuring Web 2.0 use (applications and ethos)

Assessing the perceived impact of Web 2.0 on party organisation

In order to operationalise this methodology I intend to use a number of data gathering

techniques:

Desk based research, including reviewing party constitutions, party web sites and

other printed material

Hyperlink Network Analysis in order to map out the party online sphere

Interviews with party workers, bloggers and other key figures

Survey data collected as part of an online survey conducted by the Hansard Society

Although the ultimate question related to Web 2.0 is to what extent is Web 2.0 improving

connections between party elites and party rank and file it is difficult to make causal claims

about the effects of Web 2.0 without more extensive data. As a result this research is limited

to investigating specific cases of Web 2.0 use. Although this will preclude extensive

generalisation, it will make for a detailed and in depth assessment of differing patterns of

Web 2.0 use amongst UK political parties as well as the reactions of both the party elites and

the party rank and file to the new opportunities and challenges presented by Web 2.0.

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methodology - dec 2009

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