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AbstractThe use of Twitter by politicians, parties, and the general audience in politics, particularly during election campaigns, has become an extremely popular research field almost overnight. Even though Twitter, a medium that emerged early in 2006 – the first tweet was posted on 21 March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, co‐founder of Twitter – and elections occurring only every few years, it has already received much academic attention. The studies produced are very diverse, ranging from analyzing how politicians or citizens use Twitter, to looking at their activities and the content of political Twitter messages, to network studies of Twitter users. This review will cover many types of studies that characterize the field. The large diversity in the studies conducted on elections will be represented in this review of approaches.

This introduction provides a brief overview of developments in research on political campaigning on the Internet. It presents state-of-the-art research in the field of political communication and the Internet, after which summaries of the studies in this special issue are provided. Finally, the article suggests a number of future research concerns.

Candidate websites provide politicians with opportunities to present themselves in an individual way. To a greater or lesser extent politicians share personal information in their biographies and provide options to connect with citizens by putting links on their websites to their social networking sites (SNS). In this paper, although acting on different levels, both strategies are indicated as forms of personalization strategies used by politicians in their online communication. This cross-national study explores the use of these strategies on candidate websites in 17 countries during the elections for the European Parliament (EP) in June 2009. This is a comparative study of the personalized and individualized campaigning styles used during elections. Findings show that three general dimensions of personalization can be distinguished; 'professional', 'home and family' and 'personal preferences'. While the first two dimensions show a higher level of use among candidates, the third dimension on private information is hardly used. Results show also that countries from Central Europe inform their citizens more about their professional and personal circumstances, and Mediterranean countries use personalization strategies the least. Furthermore, the overall findings show that SNS were not frequently used during the 2009 e-campaigning. West European countries use links to SNS more frequently than countries in other regions. In general these findings suggest cross-cultural differences regarding online personalized political campaigning.

This study explores how candidates running for the European Parliament (EP) in 2009 used micro-blogging and online social networks -- in this case Twitter (www.twitter.com) in the early stage of its adoption -- to communicate and connect with citizens. Micro-blogging in general, and Twitter in particular, is one of the new and popular Web 2.0 applications, yet there has been little research focusing on the use of Twitter by politicians. After reviewing different types of campaigning strategies and introducing a new and distinct strategy, this descriptive and exploratory study focuses on political candidates' use of micro-blogging and online social networking (i.e. Twitter) from a longitudinal, social network, and ideological perspective. The results clearly show that most candidates in 2009 still used Twitter reluctantly. Those who used Twitter did so predominantly for electoral campaigning and only sparingly for continuous campaigning. Candidates from progressive parties are the most active users of Twitter as a campaigning tool, whereas conservatives are virtually absent online. Although candidates' first degree networks are still relatively small and unconnected, their second degree networks are quite extensive. Candidates from parties in opposition have more extensive first degree networks than those from ruling parties. Candidates from fringe parties show small online networks. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

Political communication has transformed drastically since the Internet made its way into the political arena. Political parties seem unable to do without a website or a social networking profile any longer, particularly in election campaigns. One of the many approaches to studying online political communication is measuring specific website features political parties, politicians and candidates utilize in order to engage visitors in the political process. Even though the analysis of online political communication has evolved over the years, website-feature analysis is still a valid instrument to study political actors. The explanations sought to understand website-feature utilization are found in earlier cross-national comparative studies (technological and human development) as well as new ones (political systems characteristics, ideology, participation and engagement). This study looks back on two prior cross-national comparative research projects and reports on a cross-national comparative analysis of 1026 candidate and party websites from 17 countries participating in the European Parliament (EP) elections of 2009. To analyze these data, some methodological improvements are made compared to earlier studies.

Abstract
In this study we analyze daily data on television viewing in the Netherlands. We postulate hypotheses on supply and demand factors that could impact the amount of daily viewing time. Although the general assumption is that supply and demand often correlate, we see that for television this is only marginally the case. Especially diversity of program supply, often deemed very important in media markets, does not affect (positively or negatively) television viewing behavior. Most variation in television viewing can be attributed to habit and to regular events (e. g. weekends, Christmas) and to unexpected events (e. g. the 9/11 WTC attack). We also find that weather conditions interact with program types, so that, for example, in winter times people favor entertainment programs even more, suggesting that people use television for mood management.

This study explores how candidates running for the European Parliament (EP) in 2009 used micro-blogging and online social networks – in this case Twitter ( www.twitter.com ) in the early stage of its adoption – to communicate and connect with citizens. Micro-blogging in general, and Twitter in particular, is one of the new and popular Web 2.0 applications, yet there has been little research focusing on the use of Twitter by politicians. After reviewing different types of campaigning strategies and introducing a new and distinct strategy, this descriptive and exploratory study focuses on political candidates' use of micro-blogging and online social networking (i.e. Twitter) from a longitudinal, social network, and ideological perspective. The results clearly show that most candidates in 2009 still used Twitter reluctantly. Those who used Twitter did so predominantly for electoral campaigning and only sparingly for continuous campaigning. Candidates from progressive parties are the most active users of Twitter as a campaigning tool, whereas conservatives are virtually absent online. Although candidates' first degree networks are still relatively small and unconnected, their second degree networks are quite extensive. Candidates from parties in opposition have more extensive first degree networks than those from ruling parties. Candidates from fringe parties show small online networks.

Abstract
Journalists differ in the degree to which they have adopted the Internet professionally. While earlier studies were predominantly descriptive, this study explains why journalists differ in the amount (time spent on the Internet) and nature (diversity of Internet applications) of their use of the Internet. Based on a random sample of members of the Dutch Association of Journalists, results indicate that the digital divide in terms of demographic characteristics is absent. The perceived functionality of the Internet as a professional tool is the most important explanatory factor for the use of the Internet. Surprisingly, professional attitudes towards journalistic quality are not reflected in journalists' use of the Internet.

AbstractObjectiveThis study explored associations between television exposure and public support for restrictive immigration policies in Europe, distinguishing general television exposure from exposure to television news. We explored explanations of generalized social distrust and perceived ethnic threat and, moreover, acknowledged cross‐national variation in asylum applicants.MethodsWe applied multi‐level regression analyses using the European Social Survey (2014–2015), covering 19 countries (n = 29.161).ResultsGeneral television exposure and support for restrictive immigration policies related positively, whereas exposure to television news related negatively to these policy preferences. Furthermore, both generalized social distrust and perceived ethnic threat mediated the links between both forms of exposure and these preferences. An increase in the number of asylum applicants strengthened the positive relationship between general television exposure and these policy preferences.ConclusionsThis study provides new insights into the role of individual and national factors for support for restrictive immigration policies from a contemporary and cross‐national perspective.