Political parties and politics on the Internet: An analysis of the websites of Catalan political parties

The article analyses the use of New Information and Communications Technologies (NICT) by the political parties, going beyond approaches focusing on the potential of these technologies for political transformation and renovation. In order to do this a set of variables that characterise the strategic position of the Catalan parties is employed: ideology, organisation and position in the electoral market. The analysis shows three different forms of usage of the Internet. One group of parties (PSC, CDC-CiU) uses it to promote participation and campaigning activities; a second group (ICV, Cs), to generate new resources, and finally, a third group (PSC, ERC) uses it to build contact networks. The size, and to a lesser degree the type of organisation, stand out as the major explanatory variables. The major parties use the Internet to promote campaign activities and participation; in contrast, smaller parties tend to make use of the Internet to generate new sources of financing and workforce. Depending on the type of organisation, the parties of the masses seem to be more likely to use the Internet to set up and activate an extensive contact network which recreates the characteristic associative realm of these parties in cyberspace.