[insert politian's name here] is my Facebook friend, Week 4, 1.6

Kinds of involvement that two political websites encourage (from nominated list)

While Coombs (2009) states that direct communication with politicians has never been easier, this is not evident in the websites for the leaders of the two major Australian political parties

There is very little opportunity for participation on the Prime Minister's (Prime Minister of Australia) website and encouraging involvement appears to be limited to signing up to a newsletter via email, contacting the Prime Minister via the contact page or visiting her external sites on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Youtube.  Were you to use the contact page to send a message, if it was greater than 10,000 characters - about 1,500 words - the communication would need to be sent via regular post.  When accessing the Facebook button a popup window appeared stating that you were leaving the PM's site and they had 'no control over or responsibility for external sites'; not accurate as while they do not control the websites they do have some control over content and comments on Facebook, Flickr and Youtube with permissions and editing rights.

The Facebook page had much greater opportunity to contribute, but only by commenting on the PM's posts, and contributors who were opposed to her or the ALP did not appear to be deleted.  The PM seemed to use this as a less formal news feed and there was an image of a social media flyer (Social Media Guide, 2011) for the ALP national conference held in December.  This flyer contained details of how people could follow what was happening and communicate with the ALP during the conference, particularly via a dedicated Facebook page and specific Twitter hash tags.  Following another link took the visitor to the ALP website and a section dedicated to encouraging people to 'Get Involved' .  This provided specific ways and tools for people to share and discuss ideas and opinions

The Opposition Leader's (Abbott) website content and opportuntity for participation was almost identical to the Prime Minister's with the addition of a link to 'Tell us what you think', a community survey for the Opposition Leader's electorate only.  The links to the same social networking sites were also prominent and  the same path to Facebook ended up the Opposition Leader's page.  A link to the Liberal Party's website needed to be specifically sought rather than directed there from other information and that site (Liberal Party of Australia) was similar to the ALP's and had a tab to 'Get Involved'.  The layout of this page was simple and an easy way into participating with the Opposition on matters that interest the visitor.

Both Parties' websites' participation pages provided a diverse range of areas or ways for those wanting to participate.

Coombs, A. (2009).  How cyber-activism changed the world.  Retrieved from http://griffithreview.com/edition-24-participation-society/how-cyber-activism-changed-the-world/all-pages

Get Involved.  Australian Labor Party.  Retrieved from http://www.alp.org.au/get-involved/

Prime Minister of Australia, Retrieved from http://www.pm.gov.au/

Social Media Guide [Image]. Australian Labor Party. Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150471412757328&set=a.10150173759707328.302398.161674172327&type=1&theater10 Ways to Get Involved with the Liberals, Liberal Party of Australia, Retrieved from http://www.liberal.org.au/Get-Involved.aspx

Tony Abbott, Retrieved from http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/