Prodromos Yannas

Web Campaign in the 2002 Greek Municipal Elections

Abstract This study attempts to investigate the Web use by candidates during their campaign in the Greek local municipal elections of 2002. Municipal elections take place simultaneously with prefecture elections to decide local officials in 900 municipalities of the 51 prefectures. The municipal and prefecture electoral contests of 2002 were the first attempts of candidates to include the Web into their campaign strategies. The focus of the study is on how many candidates were going online, how much interactivity was used, what kind of information was distributed, and what kinds of multimedia tools were present. The study indicates that the overwhelming majority of municipal candidates has not used the Web as a basic information provision medium and has not explored the interactivity features for increasing levels of awareness by the voters. Comparing candidates with a Web campaign strategy to those without, we identified that candidates with a Web strategy won the contest in most of the cases. This study also revealed that running a Web campaign is important for independent candidates in municipalities of the greater Athens prefecture.

The Role of Image-Makers in the Greek Political Scene

Abstract The paper will address the role of image-makers (political consultants) in the Greek political scene. First, it is argued the growth of political consulting in Greece in the 1990s is intimately linked to the deregulation of the Greek TV scene. Second, the national elections of April 2000 will provide the context for documenting the crucial role that image-makers play in the development of image management strategy and techniques. The convergence of Greek campaigning with communication practices which have been developed and used in American elections renders support to the adaptation version of the “Americanization thesis.”

Evaluating local e-government: An analysis of Greek prefecture websites

This paper explores the use of the Internet by Greek local government. Prefectures may use the Internet for delivering services to citizens efficiently. A four-stage evaluation scheme is developed to investigate the quality and sophistication of prefecture Websites. The quantitative analysis of Websites reveals that most of the e-government efforts at the prefecture level are limited to information provision, without exploring the functions related to interactivity, transactions and more citizen-oriented services.

Political Marketing in Greece Is Ready for Take-Off

What can be said about political marketing in Greece? This is the question that was addressed at a conference held in June 2003 at the Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Western Macedonia in Kastoria, Greece. The conference initiated a dialogue among academics and practitioners/commentators as well as laid the foundation for the contribution of Greek scholars to the fast growing body of knowledge in this academic field. Political marketing has grown as a disciplined field of study in the past two decades, attracting the interest of marketers, political scientists and communication experts. To illustrate the growing academic interest suffice to point out the plethora of academic books that have been pub-

Greek Local E-Government 2.0: Drivers and Outcomes of Social Media Adoption

Are Greek local governments moving towards e-government 2.0 model? What are the factors that impact adoption of Web 2.0 tools? What is the effectiveness of these tools in terms of citizens’ awareness, interest, and engagement? The present study addresses these questions by investigating the usage and effectiveness of Web 2.0 applications employed by the 325 Greek local governments. Results indicate that local authorities in Greece are moving towards an e-government 2.0 era, albeit slowly. Local governments originating from municipalities with a large number of educated inhabitants who have made use of e-government services are more likely to be adopters of Web 2.0 tools. In addition, findings suggest that Greek citizens are beginning to be more aware of the Facebook pages of their local governments while they seem more interested in their YouTube channels. Hopefully, local governments can increase their citizens’ engagement by being active on Facebook. Officials of local governments should increase their presence on social media such as Facebook and YouTube but their strategies should be differentiated for each social medium in order to benefit from their potential.

Political Marketing and Democracy: A Plea for Cross-Fertilization

A few years back, in the summer of 2003 if I recall correctly, standing on top of a mountain range that surrounds the northern city of Kastoria in Greece, Bruce Newman—a pioneer in the field of political marketing and editor of the Journal of Political Marketing—came up with the idea of organizing a conference relating political marketing to democracy. In his words, ‘‘What better place to organize a conference on political marketing and democracy than in Greece, the birthplace of democracy?’’ ‘‘That’s a great idea,’’ I instantly replied, without realizing at the time the weight of my response. The acceptance of Professor Newman’s offer on my part entailed the obvious task of getting involved with the ‘‘mechanics’’ of overseeing and putting together, with my colleagues, an international conference. The idea, though, that the organization of the conference would set me off to a new intellectual journey in democratic politics was beyond the grasp of my imagination.

Web Candidates in the 2002 Greek Prefecture Elections

ABSTRACT This paper attempts to analyze the web sites of party candidates in the October 2002 prefecture elections in Greece. Candidate web sites regarding the 2002 prefecture elections are analyzed in terms of their political content, level of interactivity, use of multimedia techniques and level of professional appearance in their web campaign. Findings reveal that candidates are likely to present personal and political information on the web, without making negative statements regarding their opponents, make limited use of interactivity and multimedia techniques and rely less on professional web experts and more on the enthusiasm of volunteers or friends. The Greek prefecture election systems allow us also to make some tentative remarks about the impact of web campaigns in elections, comparing results between candidates with and without web sites in the second round of elections, where only two are the competitors.

The Role of Facebook in the 2014 Greek Municipal Elections

The purpose of this study is to examine the use of Facebook by candidates running for the 2014 Greek Municipal Elections by addressing the following questions: (1) which factors affect Facebook adoption by municipal candidates?, and (2) whether Facebook usage along with the popularity of candidates’ Facebook pages influence candidates’ vote share. Results indicate that Facebook is not a very popular campaigning tool among municipal candidates in Greece. This implies that Greek candidates still rely on traditional ways to lure their voters. Furthermore, findings reveal that candidates running in large municipalities who hadn’t been elected before are more likely to utilize Facebook as a means of political marketing. Despite the low adoption rate, results suggested that candidates who made use of Facebook won more votes compared to non-Facebook candidates. Moreover, it was found that a candidate’s Facebook page popularity is a good indicator of the candidate’s vote share.

Evaluating Local E-Government: a Comparative Study of Greek Prefecture Websites

This chapter explores the use of the internet by Greek local government. Prefectures may use the internet for delivering services to citizens efficiently. A four-stage evaluation scheme is developed to investigate the quality and sophistication of prefecture websites. The study adopts a comparative focus enabling us to analyze prefecture websites before and after the 2006 local elections and to draw conclusions on the sophistication and the upgrading of websites regarding information provision, interactivity, transactions, and citizen-oriented services. Compared to politics at a national scale, politics at the local level is much closer to the concerns and lives of citizens. Issues are more linked to the everyday lives of citizens (ie., environment, sanitation, traffic congestion, local development projects, etc) and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) transforms the interface of local politicians and officials with citizens by rendering local administration more efficient and local politicians more accountable to citizens’ concerns and demands. Local government in Greece is comprised of two levels. The first level consists of municipalities (cities and smaller village communities) and the second deals with prefectures. In performing their local administration duties, elected mayors and prefects are assisted by elected representatives that make up the municipal and prefectural councils as well as the staff comprising the local bureaucracy. Following the ‘Capodistrias Reform Program’ and the enactment of Law 2539/1998 aimed at municipal amalgamations, there exist currently in Greece 51 prefectures, 900 municipalities and 133 village communities. In the case of prefectures, the prefecture of Attica is further split into four prefecture units of Athens, Piraeus, Western Attica and Eastern Attica. Greek policy makers have been talking for some time for a further major reduction of the total number of prefectures from 54 to 16-18. E-government has made very few inroads in Greek local government. There are at least three major reasons for the slow-pace embracement of the ICTs by local government in Greece. First, internet penetration in Greece throughout the first decade of 2000 is maintained at low levels, whereas in 2002 households with internet access were close 18% (Flash Eurobarometer, 2002) the figure rose only by 4% to 22% in 2008 (Special Eurobarometer, 2008). The Greek figures lag considerably behind the 2002 average of 43% 23

Attack, Interact, and Mobilize: Twitter Communication Strategies of Greek Mayors and their Effects on Users’ Engagement

The aim of the present study is to examine the communication strategies used by Greek mayors in Twitter across different periods of an electoral cycle (pre-campaign, campaign, and post-campaign). Moreover, this study tries to delineate the effects of Twitter strategies on users’ engagement and identify the most effective ones. To that end, a content analysis is performed on 32,810 tweets of Greek mayors for a six-year period. Moreover, quantitative metrics such as the number of favorites and retweets are also obtained for each tweet. Results suggest that Greek mayors mainly use Twitter as a press release bulletin board for dissemination of information about the main events taking place in municipality. Moreover, they also use impression management strategies to promote a distinct personal, political and professional image. Results also show that during different periods of an electoral cycle mayors utilize a different mix of Twitter strategies. Furthermore, aggressive (attacking opponents), interactive (direct communication), and mobilization (requesting feedback) strategies are found to be the most effective in enhancing followers’ attitude expression (favorites) and advocacy behavior (retweets). The present study provides valuable practical implications for social media political marketers as well as politicians.