2010 may not have marked the first ‘internet election’, but digital platforms are of ever increasing importance in political campaigning

Abstract

Predictions that an upcoming national election will be ‘the’ internet election have been circulating in the UK and other advanced democracies since the late 1990s. Rachel Gibson and Marta Cantijoch study the UK’s general election in 2010 and find that while ecampaigning still lagged behind traditional media and mobilisation tools, there is reason to believe the internet will play a much larger role in the 2015 election and politics more generally