The European Parliament Online Campaign for the 2009 European Elections

How did the European Parliament encourage online the European Citizens to participate to the 2009 European Elections? In which ways, the strategic use of social media helped to raise awareness about the European Parliament Elections 2009?

Context

The turnout of the European Parliament Elections has been falling steadily since the first elections in 1979 indicating increased apathy about the Parliament despite its increase in power over that period.

In order to reverse this tendency, the European Parliament is increasingly using the Internet to reach out the European citizens online. The year 2009 was particularly interesting for the use of social media like social-networking and content-sharing web platforms.

[…]