Websites as a political communication medium: 2007 general elections in Turkey

Election campaigns which have significant importance in political communication activities are executed via various mass media in parallel with technological developments. Internet, the use of which is expanding day by day is widely used in election campaigns run by political parties or candidates. Campaigns are run through websites of parties or candidates. The aim of this study is to find out to what extend political parties benefit from websites and how effective these websites are in campaign strategies. For these purposes, websites of the parties which participated in Turkish General Elections of 22 July 2007 are examined in terms of content and design. Moreover, attitudes of students towards parties' websites are investigated by a questionnaire. Findings revealed that Turkish political parties use internet as a supportive means of election campaigns and internet is not yet in effective position for these campaigns. Additionally, analysis of websites emphasize that content and design features of major parties' websites are better than the minor parties.