2009 Greek National Elections 2.0 or how Greek politicians learned to love the web and what they did when they found it.

GREECE’S MOST RECENT NATIONAL ELECTIONS WERE THE PLATFORM FOR THE COUNTRY’S FIRST FULLY-FLEDGED ONLINE BATTLEGROUND AS WE WITNESSED WEB 2.0 BEING UTILISED AT ITS BEST (AND WORST) BY POLITICAL COMMUNICATORS.

Once the then Prime Minister announced - unexpectedly to most – that National Elections were to take place in a month, political spinsters, advertising execs and PR consultants went into a frenzy of serial brainstorming and idea-pitching that was verging from the ridiculous to the divine. They were immediately absorbed into a nebula of grey, darkish or even fully black campaigning. The dominant old-school advertising & PR outfits relied - as ever - solely on TV, Radio, Press and Outdoor Advertising in order to disseminate and propagate. To what effect and impact though? As the jury is still out on this one, let’s digress, dissect and digest a few key elements.

Greece’s offline media such as TV, Radio & Press have long lost credibility towards sceptical electorates as their key journalists’ political affiliations have become obvious to most offline media consumers. As the political time was elapsing and the associated rhetorical sand-storm settled in, journalists took, defended, switched and attacked sides. Some of them have adopted milder yet polarised rhetoric whereas most of them were clearly streamlining their journalistic identity with specific political agendas.

I should note that Press in Greece, being already highly partisan, during the pre-election period was generally disseminating messages that were solely satisfying hard-core party voters (of both parties) by making them feel better about their previously “backed-up horses”. Radio, still struggling to maintain a lesser-partisan mantle, lost credibility in its attempts to sensationalise in order to grasp the attention of listeners, yet not their hearts and minds. Even TV’s normally effective “talking heads” did not provide clarity, purpose, direction or even “political climate” and were merely reduced to noise-production with confusing messages and low-level political rhetoric that was at best incomprehensible. Finally, the current ruling party’s decision to not partake in outdoor advertising effectively neutralised the power of this traditional pre-election visibility and messaging platform. So besides one or two offline pop culture icons heading comedic / satiric cum political commentary shows, the offline media complex has proved ineffective in terms of communicating clearly differentiating political statements as the country’s mainstream parties were essentially articulating opposition to each other and just that.