The Digitalization of the West European Party Systems

2011 ◽  
pp. 3819-3837 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Cunha ◽  
Gerrit Voerman
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
European Parties ◽  
Internet Connections ◽  
Party Family ◽  
The Web ◽  
West European

American politics has been at the forefront of World Wide Web use. In the early 1990s political parties and candidates started to employ Web sites to spread their message. President Bill Clinton’s second-term campaign for the 1996 election was the first time the Internet appeared as a pervasive presence in American Politics, and in which all presidential candidates had Web sites (Rash, 1997). After some time, European parties and politicians followed the lead. In this article, we intend to describe the emergence of Web sites of political parties in West European nations. Reaching out to the Web required allocating limited resources. What advantages did parties hope to reap by creating a Web site, and what disadvantages might they have encountered once the sites were in place? Ideally, a comprehensive analysis would include all political parties in every West European nation. Given the complications regarding collection of data from multiple nations, however, we focused on the parties which were represented in parliament. At the same time, not all nations are currently included in this assessment. The data set consists of information provided by country experts that kindly responded to an expert survey, which included categorizing their national parties by party family (ideologically).1 To facilitate comparative analysis, we have organized the existing data into four chronological lists (tables) and two figures such as the level of Internet penetration in countries, as well as party family, size, and ideological characteristics: 1. “Complete Chronology” provides the data according to party Web site inauguration for all parties and all nations. The calendar year is divided into three-month quadrants. Is there a correlation between the spread of party Web sites in national party systems and the emergence and development of Internet connections within individual countries? 2. “Party Family Chronology” categorizes site emergence regardless of nationality by ideological divisions ranging from “Nationalist/extreme-right” toward the left ending with “Other” (mainly regional parties). Did ideology influence parties’ decisions to initiate Web sites? 3. “National Chronology” arranges Web site emergence by individual nation. Did party size (small, medium, or large) influence the Web site creation decision? 4. “National Initiator Chronology” lists only the first political party in each nation to initiate a Web site. We also include figures that consolidate the data from the lists to portray potential patterns behind party Web emergence. Our content analysis of the digitalization of Western European parties is limited only to their decisions and motivations for initiating a Web presence. We do not intend to systematically look at other facets of digital activity such as internal uses of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) by political parties for data management (archiving or membership lists) or communication (newslists).

The Digitalization of the West European Party Systems

2011 ◽  
pp. 387-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Cunha ◽  
G. Voerman
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
European Parties ◽  
Internet Connections ◽  
Party Family ◽  
The Web ◽  
West European

American politics has been at the forefront of World Wide Web use. In the early 1990s political parties and candidates started to employ Web sites to spread their message. President Bill Clinton’s second-term campaign for the 1996 election was the first time the Internet appeared as a pervasive presence in American Politics, and in which all presidential candidates had Web sites (Rash, 1997). After some time, European parties and politicians followed the lead. In this article, we intend to describe the emergence of Web sites of political parties in West European nations. Reaching out to the Web required allocating limited resources. What advantages did parties hope to reap by creating a Web site, and what disadvantages might they have encountered once the sites were in place? Ideally, a comprehensive analysis would include all political parties in every West European nation. Given the complications regarding collection of data from multiple nations, however, we focused on the parties which were represented in parliament. At the same time, not all nations are currently included in this assessment. The data set consists of information provided by country experts that kindly responded to an expert survey, which included categorizing their national parties by party family (ideologically).1 To facilitate comparative analysis, we have organized the existing data into four chronological lists (tables) and two figures such as the level of Internet penetration in countries, as well as party family, size, and ideological characteristics: 1. “Complete Chronology” provides the data according to party Web site inauguration for all parties and all nations. The calendar year is divided into three-month quadrants. Is there a correlation between the spread of party Web sites in national party systems and the emergence and development of Internet connections within individual countries? 2. “Party Family Chronology” categorizes site emergence regardless of nationality by ideological divisions ranging from “Nationalist/extreme-right” toward the left ending with “Other” (mainly regional parties). Did ideology influence parties’ decisions to initiate Web sites? 3. “National Chronology” arranges Web site emergence by individual nation. Did party size (small, medium, or large) influence the Web site creation decision? 4. “National Initiator Chronology” lists only the first political party in each nation to initiate a Web site. We also include figures that consolidate the data from the lists to portray potential patterns behind party Web emergence. Our content analysis of the digitalization of Western European parties is limited only to their decisions and motivations for initiating a Web presence. We do not intend to systematically look at other facets of digital activity such as internal uses of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) by political parties for data management (archiving or membership lists) or communication (newslists).

Eliminating Invisible Barriers: Health Web Site Accessibility

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-86
Author(s):  
Christine Rzepka
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Accessibility Issues ◽  
Accessibility Guidelines ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Simple Evaluation ◽  
The Web

One of the top reasons given for use of the internet is the ability to search for health information. However, much of the planning for web-based health information often fails to consider accessibility issues. If health care organizations and community agencies’ web sites have the latest, most wellresearched information on the health topics of the day, it is useless to those who cannot access it because of invisible technological barriers. Many flashy, high-tech sites were designed only to appeal to the needs of the mainstream population, with no consideration given to how people with disabilities must adapt their use of the web in order to access information. This article addresses issues of access specific to web site development, and will explore barriers to accessibility frequently experienced by web users with disabilities, requirements for ADA compliance, and how people with disabilities use the web. Web site accessibility guidelines, as well as simple evaluation tools, will be discussed. A thorough review of the article will enable even the least tech-savvy of health educators to enhance their skills in planning and evaluating web sites to promote access for people with disabilities.

Personalization Systems and Their Deployment as Web Site Interface Design

2011 ◽  
pp. 147-155
Author(s):  
Nanda Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Human Computer Interaction ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Interface Design ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Practical Relevance ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Communication Capability ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Web

This chapter reviews the different types of personalization systems commonly employed by Web sites and argues that their deployment as Web site interface design decisions may have as big an impact as the personalization systems themselves. To accomplish this, this chapter makes a case for treating Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) issues seriously. It also argues that Web site interface design decisions made by organizations, such as the type and level of personalization employed by a Web site, have a direct impact on the communication capability of that Web site. This chapter also explores the impact of the deployment of personalization systems on users’ loyalty towards the Web site, thus underscoring the practical relevance of these design decisions.

Web 2.0 and Beyond-Participation Culture on the Web

2009 ◽  
pp. 1537-1544
Author(s):  
August-Wilhelm Scheer
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Broad Band ◽  
Local Data ◽  
Server Side ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Internet Connections ◽  
The Web

The emergence of what we call today the World Wide Web, the WWW, or simply the Web, dates back to 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext system to manage information overload at CERN, Switzerland (Berners-Lee, 1989). This article outlines how his approaches evolved into the Web that drives today’s information society and explores its full potentials still ahead. The formerly known wide-area hypertext information retrieval initiative quickly gained momentum due to the fast adoption of graphical browser programs and standardization activities of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). In the beginning, based only on the standards of HTML, HTTP, and URL, the sites provided by the Web were static, meaning the information stayed unchanged until the original publisher decided for an update. For a long time, the WWW, today referred to as Web 1.0, was understood as a technical mean to publish information to a vast audience across time and space. Data was kept locally and Web sites were only occasionally updated by uploading files from the client to the Web server. Application software was limited to local desktops and operated only on local data. With the advent of dynamic concepts on server-side (script languages like hypertext preprocessor (PHP) or Perl and Web applications with JSP or ASP) and client-side (e.g., JavaScript), the WWW became more dynamic. Server-side content management systems (CMS) allowed editing Web sites via the browser during run-time. These systems interact with multiple users through PHP-interfaces that push information into server-side databases (e.g., mySQL) which again feed Web sites with content. Thus, the Web became accessible and editable not only for programmers and “techies” but also for the common user. Yet, technological limitations such as slow Internet connections, consumer-unfriendly Internet rates, and poor multimedia support still inhibited a mass-usage of the Web. It needed broad-band Internet access, flat rates, and digitalized media processing to catch on.

Understanding Brand Web Site Positioning in the New EU Member States

2011 ◽  
pp. 99-117
Author(s):  
Shintaro Okazaki ◽  
Radoslav Škapa
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Analysis Technique ◽  
Similarity Ratings ◽  
New Eu Member States ◽  
The Web

This chapter examines Web sites created by American Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in the Czech Republic. Utilizing a content analysis technique, we scrutinized (1) the type of brand Web site functions, and (2) the similarity ratings between the home (U.S.) sites and Czech sites. Implications are discussed from the Web site standardization versus localization perspective.

Personalization Systems and Their Deployment as Web Site Interface Design Decisions

2009 ◽  
pp. 212-219
Author(s):  
Nanda Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Human Computer Interaction ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Interface Design ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Practical Relevance ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Communication Capability ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Web

This chapter reviews the different types of personalization systems commonly employed by Web sites and argues that their deployment as Web site interface design decisions may have as big an impact as the personalization systems themselves. To accomplish this, this chapter makes a case for treating Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) issues seriously. It also argues that Web site interface design decisions made by organizations, such as the type and level of personalization employed by a Web site, have a direct impact on the communication capability of that Web site. This chapter also explores the impact of the deployment of personalization systems on users’ loyalty towards the Web site, thus underscoring the practical relevance of these design decisions.

Multilingual Web Sites in Global Electronic Commerce

2011 ◽  
pp. 823-828
Author(s):  
Shaoyi He
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Commerce ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Web Content ◽  
Fortune 500 Companies ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
The Many ◽  
Content Design ◽  
The Web

The World Wide Web (the Web), a distributed hypermedia information system that provides global access to the Internet, has been most widely used for exchanging information, providing services, and doing business across national boundaries. It is difficult to find out exactly when the first multilingual Web site was up and running on the Internet, but as early as January 1, 1993, EuroNews, the first multilingual Web site in Europe, was launched to simultaneously cover world news from a European perspective in seven languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. (EuroNews, 2005). In North America, Web site multilinguality has become an important aspect of electronic commerce (e-commerce) as more and more Fortune 500 companies rely on the Internet and the Web to reach out to millions of customers and clients. Having a successful multilingual Web site goes beyond just translating the original Web content into different languages for different locales. Besides the language issue, there are other important issues involved in Web site multilinguality: culture, technology, content, design, accessibility, usability, and management (Bingi, Mir, & Khamalah, 2000; Dempsey, 1999; Hillier, 2003; Lindenberg, 2003; MacLeod, 2000). This article will briefly address the issues related to: (1) language that is one of the many elements conforming culture, (2) culture that greatly affects the functionality and communication of multilingual Web sites, and (3) technology that enables the multilingual support of e-commerce Web sites, focusing on the challenges and strategies of Web site multilinguality in global e-commerce.

Customer Goals Online

2011 ◽  
pp. 163-167
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Porter
Keyword(s):  
Customer Service ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Product Line ◽  
Specific Product ◽  
Large Product ◽  
Apparent Reason ◽  
Goal Directed Behavior ◽  
The Web

Marketing managers charged with developing effective e-marketing strategies need to understand the implications of goal-directed behavior online. Traditionally, the marketer’s job has involved capturing the customer’s attention and communicating a message about products or services. The customer is essentially a passive receiver of the marketer’s message with little control over the marketing messages they are exposed to. Contrast the traditional approach to marketing with a Web site. Online the customer arrives at the marketer’s Web site with a goal. The customer has something that he or she wants to accomplish, whether it be to acquire information about a product, to make a purchase, or to just be entertained. By understanding the customer’s purpose for a Web site visit, the Web marketer is in a position to develop a Web site that provides significant value. Furthermore, a failure to deliver a Web site that enables customers to accomplish their goals is likely to result in dissatisfaction and defection to other more useful Web sites. Understanding customer online goals is critical because it gets at the heart of what the Web site should or could “do.” The challenge for e-marketers is that for most businesses, there are likely to be multiple goals that represent the “reason why” customers could come to the Web site. For example, an e-tailing site might be very effective for customers who already know the specific product they want to purchase. However, there are likely to be many other goals that could lead people to visit the site, such as selecting the appropriate product form a large product line, selecting an appropriate gift, or perhaps receiving customer service. If important customer goals are not supported by the Web site, the firm is at risk of losing a significant amount of business. Other times businesses compete in markets where there may be little apparent reason for a consumer to visit a Web site. As a result, and because firms feel they should have an online presence, many e-marketing sites are created that offer little more than online reproductions of the marketer’s off-line advertising. The purpose of this article is to help e-marketers better understand the nature of customer goals online so that they may be prepared to create the types of Web site experiences that provide value to their customers.

A Proposed Template for the Evaluation of Web Design Strategies

2009 ◽  
pp. 293-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Xanthidis ◽  
David Nicholas ◽  
Paris Argyrides
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Web Design ◽  
International Literature ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Work Done ◽  
The Web

This chapter is the result of a two years effort to design a template aiming at standardizing, as much as such a task is feasible, the evaluation of Web sites. It is the product of a few publications in international conferences and journals. A thorough review of the international literature on the subject led the authors to conclude there is a very large number of opinions, thoughts and criteria from different professionals involved, directly or indirectly, with the process of designing a good Web site. To make matters even more complicated there are a number of different terms used by various scholars, scientists and professionals around the world that often refer to similar, if not the same, attributes of a Web site. However, it seems that all these differences could boil down to a systematic approach, here called evaluation template, of 53 points that the design strategies of the Web sites should be checked against. This template was tested on a significant number (232) of Web sites of Greek companies and proved it can be used to evaluate the quality of Web sites not only by technology experts but by non-experts alike. The evaluation template, suggested here, is by no means the solution to the problem of standardizing the process of evaluating a Web site but looking at other work done on the subject worldwide it is a step ahead.

scholarly journals Quantifying quality of WEB site based on usability

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2.7) ◽  
pp. 320
Author(s):  
Dr JKR Sastry ◽  
N Sreenidhi ◽  
K Sasidhar
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Information Dissemination ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
The Internet ◽  
End User ◽  
Effi Ciency ◽  
Computational Procedures ◽  
The Web

Information dissemination is taking place these days heavily using web sites which are hosted on the internet. The effectiveness and effi-ciency of the design of the WEB site will have great effect on the way the content hosted on the WEB can be accessed. Quality of a web site, places a vital role in making available the required information to the end user with ease satisfying the users content requirements. A framework has been proposed comprising 42 quality metrics using which the quality of a web site can be measured. Howevercompu-tations procedures have not been stated in realistic terms.In this paper, computational procedures for measuring “usability” of a WEB site can be measured which can be included into overall computation of the quality of a web site.

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