The most blog-friendly country in Europe
Here’s a question: blogs have had the greatest political impact in which country in Europe? Answer after the jump…. According to the Financial Times’ Martin Arnold, the answer is… France: Next year’s French presidential elections will be the first to take place since blogging caught the public imagination. With surveys showing the French are among ...
Here's a question: blogs have had the greatest political impact in which country in Europe? Answer after the jump.... According to the Financial Times' Martin Arnold, the answer is... France: Next year's French presidential elections will be the first to take place since blogging caught the public imagination. With surveys showing the French are among Europe's the most active readers of blogs, the ruling UMP party for the first time invited 12 of the country's leading blogs to attend its youth convention in Marseilles as part of the press corps. The UMP's move is a sign that France is catching up with the US, where bloggers have been attending Republican and Democratic party conventions for years. "A big population of French people only get their news via the internet, so we wanted to reach them, as well as to create some excitement around the youth convention," says Thierry Sol?re, head of internet strategy at the UMP. Lo?c Le Meur, author of one of France's best-known blogs - www.loiclemeur.com - says: "They have really created a buzz in the blogosphere. It is really very clever, as they have understood that they can reach several million people through us.".... Last year campaigners in favour of the European constitution were caught out by the No campaign's domination of the online debate ahead of the French referendum that rejected the treaty. It has since become de rigueur for presidential candidates on left and right to start a blog. S?gol?ne Royal, the favourite to be the Socialist presidential candidate, has invited readers to submit ideas for a manifesto-style book she is publishing online.... France has stolen a march on the rest of Europe in the blogosph?re. More than 4.5m people have created a blog in France, or 18 per cent of the 26.9m people who have an internet connection, according to a study published last week by Ipsos. While 36 per cent of internet users visited blogs in France, this figure was only 24 per cent in the UK, 18 per cent in Italy and 9 per cent in Germany, according to a study in June by M?dia-m?trie. France's blogging boom is being driven by the young: 80 per cent of French blogs were created by people aged 25 or under. Question to readers -- why France?
Here’s a question: blogs have had the greatest political impact in which country in Europe? Answer after the jump…. According to the Financial Times’ Martin Arnold, the answer is… France:
Next year’s French presidential elections will be the first to take place since blogging caught the public imagination. With surveys showing the French are among Europe’s the most active readers of blogs, the ruling UMP party for the first time invited 12 of the country’s leading blogs to attend its youth convention in Marseilles as part of the press corps. The UMP’s move is a sign that France is catching up with the US, where bloggers have been attending Republican and Democratic party conventions for years. “A big population of French people only get their news via the internet, so we wanted to reach them, as well as to create some excitement around the youth convention,” says Thierry Sol?re, head of internet strategy at the UMP. Lo?c Le Meur, author of one of France’s best-known blogs – www.loiclemeur.com – says: “They have really created a buzz in the blogosphere. It is really very clever, as they have understood that they can reach several million people through us.”…. Last year campaigners in favour of the European constitution were caught out by the No campaign’s domination of the online debate ahead of the French referendum that rejected the treaty. It has since become de rigueur for presidential candidates on left and right to start a blog. S?gol?ne Royal, the favourite to be the Socialist presidential candidate, has invited readers to submit ideas for a manifesto-style book she is publishing online…. France has stolen a march on the rest of Europe in the blogosph?re. More than 4.5m people have created a blog in France, or 18 per cent of the 26.9m people who have an internet connection, according to a study published last week by Ipsos. While 36 per cent of internet users visited blogs in France, this figure was only 24 per cent in the UK, 18 per cent in Italy and 9 per cent in Germany, according to a study in June by M?dia-m?trie. France’s blogging boom is being driven by the young: 80 per cent of French blogs were created by people aged 25 or under.
Question to readers — why France?
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and the author of The Ideas Industry. Twitter: @dandrezner
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