Andrea Römmele
Political Parties, Party Communication and New Information and Communication Technologies

Party Politics, 2003: 9, issue 1, pp. 7-20
ISSN: 1354-0688

The article provides a theoretical overview of how parties in modern democracies are using the Internet to perform a range of key functions, such as opinion formation, interest mediation and party organization. Drawing on the party goals' literature and classic party typologies, the central argumetn of the article is that new information and communication technolgies (ICTs) are utilized in different ways by different types of political parties. While some parties stress the downward dissemination of information via new ICTs, others emphasize their interactive and targeting possibilities.