widespread panic overcame the Polish media system. “If the Internet users decided, KNP
[marginal right wing libertarian party] would win the incoming election” – this statement
was made the headline of the day in many radio stations, internet portals, newspapers
and television news-channels. This exaggerated headline carved for the vacation-season
obviously cannot be taken as a serious material for analysis of the voting preferences in the
country but it shows how efficient can be the activity of many small parties and marginal
movements in the Internet.
The final conclusion of this piece was made after comparing the fan bases of the party-leaders
on Facebook. Janusz Korwin-Mikke, the controversial leader of KNP, is the unquestionable
winner of this contest with 81 thousands of fans – just to compare: the second popular
politician is left-wing populist Janusz Palikot (popular among young voters – supporter
of cannabis use and gay marriages legalization) with 30 thousands. The governing Prime
Minister Donald Tusk gathered only around 8500 followers (which is still better than the
opposition leader Jarosław Kaczyński with 18.000 likes for “I DON”T WANT HIM AS A
PRIME MINISTER”).
What is curious, Janusz Korwin Mikke, appearing to be the most popular Polish politician
(as far as facebook is concerned), unsuccessfully tries to get elected since 1992 – starting in
every election: parliamentary, presidential, to the European parliament and even for mayor of
Warsaw. He is a strong supporter of ultraliberal economical policy based on thought of Hayek
or von Mises and a natural-born showman good in public appearances: always wearing his
bow-tie and fancy suit, often compares Obama to Hitler, insults homosexuals or proves that
women are genetically less intelligent than men. His consequence and controversial, vivid
articles as well as speeches are things to admire, but he fails as a real politician and is simply
unelectable.
He still managed to gather a huge group of committed supporters that are active (many
would say overactive) in almost every social network, discussion list or portal concerning
politics. “Dzieci Korwina” (Children of Korwin), as they are often called tend to post a
massive amount of spam before every election – the most visible example of their activity
was the situation on wykop.pl (which can be described as a Polish version of reddit) – the
administration had to create a filter allowing users to get rid of the political content because it
became impossible to enjoy the site in a normal way.
There is no doubt that thanks to the loudest, most active and numerous group of fans (or even
fanatics), Janusz Korwin-Mikke has become the most visible Polish politician in the Internet
(“The President of the Internet” – as one headline calls him). Despite the huge effort of the
party members and other supporters, he can’t compete with the other politicians in the real
world - he never crossed the border of 2%.
The activity of the unpopular, marginal and sometimes extreme movements in the Polish
Internet is much bigger than this one party. It can even be said that all these groups form
a different medial reality – with new heroes, topics, trends and discourse absent in the mainstream media. Tens of websites, such as rebelya.pl , autonom.pl (“modern nationalism”),
nacjonalista.pl, blogging platforms (salon24.pl and blogpress.pl), discussion forums, groups
on facebook etc – all these sites talk about ultraliberal economical ideas, threat of Islamic
expansion, international governmental plots against our freedom, fight against progressive
ideas, protest against abortion, gay rights etc. The whole community is well-organized and,
for instance, played an important role in anti-ACTA protests in Poland. However, there are
also dark sides of the whole process – the most known is so called “redwatch” – website
created by some neo-Nazis which is a huge database of left-wing activists and supporters
with their names, addresses and pictures. The authors blatantly encourage viewers to insult
and even physically assault those people. There were many attempts of the authorities to
block this website, but it has been moved to a server in some exotic country where it exists till
today.
The Internet is also a chance for professional journalists engaged in promoting just one party
and therefore having troubles with finding a work in traditional media. Some of them run the
portal wpolityce.pl – consisting simple pieces of news from agencies and in more important
part – opinions of different authors (both journalists and politicians). The content of those
differs strongly from every other medium on the market – the main themes and topics are
presented from the point of view of the main opposition, catholic-conservative party. The
tests mostly concern the Christianity being threatened by the secularist government and
European Union and alleged assassination of Polish president during the plane crash in 2010.
The website had some financial problems but managed to overcome it in quite original way:
there was an online shop created, where the most committed supporters can buy bags, cups or
calendars with the logo.
Growing popularity of all these websites proves that the Internet is a unique opportunity for
various niche movements and groups to gain publicity and popularize their ideas without
expensive campaigns or favorable opinion of the main media enterprises. Web 2.0 and social
networks have a huge marketing potential and above examples show it’s really easy to gain
attention. The question is how to use it in gaining votes of the users, and why the other,
mainstream parties don’t even try to seize this opportunity?
Jakub Iglewski
No comments:
Post a Comment