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Abstract
The article explores the contribution of MKs' websites to political personalization by addressing three questions. Is it more likely that MKs who belong to parties that conduct primaries will establish a website than MKs who belong to parties which select their candidates in a more centralized fashion? Are MKs' websites richer, more interactive and more frequently updated than their respective party's websites? Finally, do MKs link their websites to the websites of their parties? We find some evidence that MKs' personal websites further support and enhance the personalization of Israeli politics.
Notes
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53. Sharon Haleva-Amir, “This Site's Aim is to Maintain a Useful, Stable, Ongoing Connection with the Public: On the Gap between Texts and Features in Israeli MPs' Personal Websites” (in preparation).
54. Haleva-Amir, “Online Israeli Politics: Current State of the Art.”
55. Tomer Avital and Omer Kabir, “Waiting for a Response: Most MKs Don't Refer to Facebook Appeals,” Calcalist, January 4, 2010 [in Hebrew], http://www.calcalist.co.il/internet/articles/0,7340,L-3385003,00.html.
56. Haleva-Amir, “Online Israeli Politics: Current State of the Art”; Mazal Mualem, “In Today's Politics, Parties Branches are Abandoned and Replaced by Twitter,” Haaretz, October 12, 2010 [in Hebrew], http://www.haaretz.co.il/captain/spages/1203278.html.
57. Girish J. Gulaty and Christine B. Williams, “Social Networks in Political Campaigns: Facebook and the 2006 Midterm Elections” (paper prepared for delivery at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association Chicago, Illinois); Scott P. Robertson, Ravi K. Vatrapu, and Richard Medina, “The Social Life of Social Networks: Facebook Linkage Patterns in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election” (paper prepared for the Proceedings of the 10th International Digital Government Research Conference, 2009); Andy Williamson, “The Effect of Digital Media on MPs' Communication with Constituents,” Parliamentary Affairs 62, no. 3 (2009): 514–27.
58. The phenomenon of politicians who disassociate themselves from their party is very evident in the municipal politics in Israel. Until the mid 1970s local politics functioned in the hospices of the National Party System and the parties that ran in general elections introduced party lists at the municipal level as well and had an impact in the municipalities. Since 1978, however, the election system has been modified and now voters cast two ballots, one for the head of the municipality and one for the party that runs for the municipality council. As a result of this change, many contenders for heads of municipalities prefer to run as heads of independent parties that are not formally associated with a major party, even if it is de facto supported by it. This is done to avoid the potential burden of identifying with a party and not in order to avoid alienating potential voters and increase the number of potential voters. See Dana Blander, “Is there a Connection between the 2008 Local Elections and the 2009 General Elections?,” The Israel Democracy Institute, January 1, 2009 [in Hebrew], http://www.idi.org.il/breakingnews/pages/breaking_the_news_82.aspx.
59. Rachel K. Gibson and Stephen J. Ward, “A Proposed Methodology for Studying the Function and Effectiveness of Party and Candidate Web Sites,” Social Science Computer Review 18, no. 3 (2000): 301–19; James L. Newell, “Italian Political Parties on the Web,” The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 6, no. 4 (2001): 60–87; Matthew Conway and Dan Dorner, “An Evaluation of New Zealand Political Party Websites,” Information Research 9, no. 4 (July 2004); Christine B. Williams and Girish J. Gulati, The Evolutionary Development of Campaign Web Sites: The U.S. Senate, 2000–2004, paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott, Loews Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA, August 31, 2006. Available at: http://blogsandwikis.bentley.edu/politechmedia/up-content/uploads/2007/09/prq-onlineevolution.pdf; Marc Hooghe and Sara Vissers, “Belgium: Websites as Party Campaign Tools – Comparing the 2000 and 2006 Local Election Campaigns,” in Making a Difference, ed. Stephen Ward et al. (Lexington Books, 2008), 171–97; Stephen Ward, Rachel Gibson, and Wainer Lusoli, “The United Kingdom: Parties and the 2005 Virtual Election Campaign – Not Quite Normal?,” Making a Difference, ed. Ward et al., 133–61.
60. The Labor party has split into two separate parties during the 18th Knesset, after the research for this paper was completed. The data and analysis in this paper is based on the original Labor party with all 13 Knesset members that were elected in the 2009 elections. For more on the split, see Jonathan Lis and Mazal Mualem, “Ehud Barak Leaves the Labor Party,” Haaretz, January 17, 2011 [in Hebrew], http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1210069.html; the Likud party website acts also as a website for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his role as chairman of the Likud. The website was not counted as a personal website because of the difficulty of discerning between the Likud and Netanyahu's segments.
61. Yair Ettinger, “Ousted Shas MK Refuses to Give Up Knesset Seat,” Haaretz, November 24, 2011, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/ousted-shas-mk-refuses-to-give-up-knesset-seat-1.326456.
62. Stayner, “Elected Representatives, Online Self-Presentation and the Personal Vote,” 427; Jackson, “MPs and Web Technologies: An Untapped Opportunity?”; Norton, “Four Models of Political Representation,” 361; Park, Thelwall, and Kluver, “Political Hyperlinking in South Korea.”
63. Klotz, “Positive Spin,” 484; Stanyer, “Elected Representatives, Online Self-Presentation and the Personal Vote.”
64. The websites of MKs Silvan Shalom and Tzipi Hotoveli gained 27 and 24 points respectively.
65. Michal Shamir et al., “Kadima – Forward in a Dealigned Party System,” in The Election in Israel 2006, ed. Arian and Shamir, 25–61 [in Hebrew]; Mazal Mualem, “Labor Party Sank to an Unprecedented Slump: Number of Party Members Stands at Only Thirty Thousand,” Haaretz, May 5, 2010 [in Hebrew], http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1167560.html; Efraim Inbar, “The Decline of the Labour Party,” Israel Affairs 16, no. 1 (January 2010): 69–81.
66. Lis and Mualem, “Ehud Barak Leaves the Labor Party.”
67. Yehuda Ben Meir, “The Rise and Fall of Mafda,l, The Israel Democracy Institute, December 10, 2008 [in Hebrew], http://www.idi.org.il/BreakingNews/Pages/Breaking_the_News_74.aspx; Ofer Kenig, “Farewell to Mafdal,” The Israel Democracy Institute, November 19, 2008 [in Hebrew], http://www.idi.org.il/BreakingNews/Pages/Breaking_the_News_74.aspx; Kobi Nachshoni, “Habayit Hayehudi Splits: Uri Ariel Resigns,”,Ynet, December 25, 2008 [in Hebrew], http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3644582,00.html.