In Ukraine, Covering The Election, One Tweet At A Time

That was a tweet posted by Neman44 — a.k.a. Oleksiy Brituk, a 37-year-old activist and Twitter enthusiast — early on January 18, following the close of polls and the start of the vote count in Ukraine’s presidential election.

Brituk, who lives and works in the eastern city of Lugansk, near the Russian border, is a member of Ukraine’s 106th regional election committee, whose function following the January 17 vote was to receive and transmit information from local polls to central election officials.

Brituk this year took a new-media approach to the often low-tech world of ballot counting. Using his mobile phone, he kept the outside world apprised of the 106th committee vote tally by posting regular tweets, such as this:

We’ve gone through 76 percent [of the ballots]: 66.66% Yanukovych, 16 % Tihipko, 7% Yulia.

Brituk was one of approximately 100 citizen journalists participating in Elect UA, a project in which hundreds of citizen journalists were invited to use the Twitter social networking site to keep Ukrainians up-to-date on the latest developments during the voting and the ballot counts that followed. (“ua” is the Ukrainian web domain suffix.)

Opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are set to face off in the election’s second round on February 7.

Oleksiy Brituk

Supporters of the Elect UA project call it a step towards transparency. But skeptics say Ukraine still has a way to go before new technology becomes the norm, rather than the exception

As for Brituk, he sees the social networking tool as a key step forward in Ukraine’s democratic evolution.

“During the 2004 [presidential] elections, there were some efforts made to democratize the media, as they were biased. But the efforts were unsuccessful,” he says. “As far as I understand the philosophy of Twitter, eyewitnesses are now encouraged to report about what they do or see on the [Twitter] site. This way, everyone can access the news in real time.”

Brituk has also turned to new media to support the work of an archaelogical NGO he heads in Lugansk, using a blogging campaign to save two World War I-era British-built tanks from demolition.

Pendulum Is Swinging

He says this year’s campaign differed from the 2004 race because the candidates were more adept at using new technologies to promote themselves and their positions. (Many of them have Twitter feeds and Facebook fan pages.) But average citizens, he adds, were also ready to use new media for their own benefit.

“The most [technologically] advanced sector of society, and young people overall, received more up-to-date and more interesting, diversified information,” Brituk says. “I’m talking about both classical websites and blogs, including Twitter. I think the pendulum has already begun to swing in favor of new media.”

Vitaliy Moroz

Vitaliy Moroz (known as @insider_ua on Twitter) heads the new media division at the Ukrainian branch of the international media-promotion organization Internews, which spearheaded the Elect UA project, also known as the All-Ukrainian Twitter Broadcasting of Election 2010. (All tweets contained the term #Elect_UA, which allowed for easy searching.)

Moroz says the project’s aim was to help every stage of the election appear as transparent as possible, and to provide additional sources of information for journalists and ballot committees.

The January 17 vote was given a clean bill of health by international monitors as almost violation-free. Moroz, too, says he is pleased with the results.

“The Twitter social network has proved to be one of the most efficient way of conveying information. There are about 100,000 tweets on our specialized website. The #elect_ua ‘tag’ is in first place in the top 100 tags.”

Twitter Firsts

Just how many people were tracking the election tweets is hard to gauge, however. The Ukrainian branch of the Russian search engine Yandex estimates there are about 17,000 Twitter users in Ukraine. But Moroz says the ultimate number of people benefitting from the Elect UA project is far greater, as the Twitter posts quickly trickled down to the wider Internet and even into mainstream media.

Thanks to the Twitter project, Moroz says he was among the first Internet users to see video evidence of attempts to bribe soldiers at polling stations, as well as a post about the birth of triplets at a polling station in Odessa.

Moroz says Twitter has proven its worth as the quickest way to convey news to a wide audience, and points to the critical role the social networking tool played in the massive street protests that followed Iran’s elections last year.

“A certain analogy can be drawn with blogging in Iran, but there are some fundamental differences,” Moroz says. “In Iran, Twitter was used after the elections to mobilize people. But in Ukraine, it was used for elections coverage, as the most rapid source of information.”

Meant Little To Many

But Elect UA has its skeptics. Natalia Ligacheva, the editor in chief of “Telekritika” media watchdog magazine, says the election tweets may have been a bonus for plugged-in professionals but meant little to ordinary citizens.

Ligacheva acknowledges projects like Elect UA may help enhance election transparency — to some extent. But at the same time, she thinks that Internet technology still remains secondary to more traditional media.

Natalia Ligachova

“Television remains the main medium for political propaganda. And you can see that it’s this media that proves decisive in the end,” Ligacheva says. “Sergei Tihipko’s campaign proves it. It lasted six months, and his main strategy was getting himself [traditional] media coverage. We don’t know his team; he doesn’t have the usual political forces around him. But he came in third place. I think that’s due to his competent use of traditional media and outdoor advertising.”

Ligacheva admits that new media has proved a powerful tool in other countries elections — most notably in the U.S. 2008 presidential race, when then-candidate Barack Obama was credited with running the most Internet-savvy campaign the country had ever seen.

Ukrainian politics may someday reach a similar level of sophistication, she says. For now, however, Ligacheva suggests Ukrainian politics have a long way to go before Internet technology becomes a tool of civil communication rather than a negative attack tool.

“It was via the Internet that the American President Barack Obama communicated with a great number of U.S. citizens to explain his ideas and messages,” Ligacheva says. “Unfortunately, in Ukraine, the Internet was used with another aim — as a tool against political opponents. And despite a declaration about having blogs, not a single politician posted anything themselves.”

National Exit Poll on Twitter and YouTube

Presidential elections in 2010 will be the first to actively use the Internet, including social networks and microblogging. It is expected these sites will be the first to report the election results, writes Roman Lebed in his article for BBC.
Exit poll is a sociological survey of voters leaving polling stations, director of the fund “Democratic Initiatives” Ilko Kuchera says. This public organization arranges “Click National Exit Polls” during the Ukrainian elections in 2010.

This year the fund created the page in five popular social networks: Vkontakte, Facebook, Twitter, LJ (Livejournal) and Youtube.
According to Ilko Kuchera, over 10 million people use the Internet in Ukraine. Thus the “Democratic Initiatives” will work for this part of the voters. In particular, at eight o’clock on Sunday evening there will be live exit poll results on YouTube broadcasted.
All of the news about the elections can also be read in social networks and blogging services. A database of voting results on the Internet may appear even earlier than elsewhere. At least that is what they promise in the fund.
“We try to be modern. Exit-polls are conducted for the control of honest counting. Thus Ukrainians can get this information very soon,” – Ilko Kuchera told the BBC.
For faster work, “Democratic Initiatives” signed a contract with the company “Intermediakonsaltyng”, so all interested journalists can get an equal access to the announcements about the exit poll results. Regional TV stations would be able to broadcast it live via satellite, Ilko Kuchera says.
At the same time with all the technical innovations, this year became the first nationwide poll, which was conducted almost exclusively at the expense of Ukrainians. Currently the money “Democratic Initiatives” have would just be enough to work during the first round. Generally speaking, the exit poll expenses are up to $110 000.
This fund appealed to citizens asking to donate money using text messages. But until now, money are mostly coming from presidential candidates. Ilko Kuchera promises the exit polls will be held honestly though.
In addition to that, another NGO “Internews-Ukraine” established a network of Tweeter-reporters. Now it has over 60 participants from many regions of Ukraine. Since January 7^th, they post online Twitter news about everything they see and hear about the elections in their regions. As the head of new media department of “Internews-Ukraine” Vitaly Moroz says, they have posted more than 30 000 short messages. They can be found online, or through search engines, with a special label # elect_ua.
The authors of the idea to post election news on Twitter say that this is the Ukraine’s first attempt to systematically apply the opportunities of Twitter to cover the elections.
They also hope that in this way, journalists and people who monitor election will be able to get quick information about the election in the regions. This information, they say, could become the basis for future articles.

Ukrainian Users of Social Networks will Know the Results of Exit Poll First

This year Ukrainian fund “Democratic Initiatives” (FDI), which traditionally organized exit polls for the Ukrainian elections, has opened the pages in five popular social networks. This will allow Internet users to instantly see the results of exit poll. In the fund they decided it is better than to tell about them on television or write in newspapers.
Exit poll is express a sociological survey of voters leaving polling stations. Exit poll was invented in the United States in order to help news and television organizations. The authors of the survey probably did not even think that in Ukraine exit polls will soon become one of the most important instruments of social control for fairness and transparency of elections.
“We fight for that exit poll is the Ukrainian tradition” – the director of the FDI Ilko Kuchera said.
It should be not only the tradition, but also a kind of new Ukrainian brand. It should be a positive example for all of the countries which have chosen the path of democratic reforms.

Ukrainian Politicians Becoming Bloggers

Ukrainian politicians join their foreign colleagues’ example and start to establish their personal blogs. After 100 days in power, President Viktor Yanukovych started his own blog in one of the social networks, writes Evheniya Rudenko for BBC. But how actively Ukrainian politicians are blogging? Another question is whether they or their assistants actually do that?
Internet blogging is not a new phenomenon among Internet users. But Ukrainian politicians started to use social networks just recently.
Compared to the online activity of the politicians around the world, the posts of Ukrainian President or former Prime Minister may look pretty simple and not interesting at all.
Viktor Yanukovych writes more to the social network Twitter. There he does not write anything personal. His posts are more official and look rather like news stream than a personal blog. His latest posts is about the economic reforms of Ukraine for 2010-2014 years.
The opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko registered in another social network – Facebook. The posts of former Prime Minister there are more personalized; she shares her views on the political situation in the country and sometimes responds to comments of her supporters.
Users of social networks, however, doubt that the politicians actually maintain their own blogs. It can do their assistants. Active blogger and political analyst Yevgeny Kostenko is sure in that.
“It is clear that they have some help in blogging. This is simpe: you go to Facebook and see that a person is active and see her or him on TV at the same time. Yanukovych has a young son and the son is affecting these things. Lytvyn cannot work on computers himself. If you look at his desk, he does not even have a mouse!

Meatloaf in Chavez’s Blog
The leaders of other countries like blogging. Even those who started to post recently, immediately became active contributors. The best example is probably Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Here is one of his posts on the social network Twitter:
“Today I prepared a meatloaf with sweet breads and cinnamon. Hello, Venezuela! I have a wonderful day today in Buenos Aires. Viva Revolution! Viva Bolivar!”
Besides a personal blog that Hugo Chavez writes daily at least three times a day, he also has a weekly TV program “Hello, President!” which lasts about five hours.
All this time Hugo Chavez is meeting with his ministers, the audience. He is also joking, laughing and even sends air kisses.

Likes the Pictures
The official site of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev also has a blog. Unlike Chavez, Russian President is not kidding in his blog. Mostly he talks about business.
Mr. Medvedev writes his blog in various places – he talks about the cooperation with Africa in the jeep in the desert; he greets Russians with the New Year and asks them about Olympics in Sochi in his winter jacket with double-headed eagle; he talks about his visit to Latin America in the cabin of his plane.
In one of his video blog Russian official tells about his hobby: “If I have free time, I try to take pictures. I do this not only at home. I also take my camera with me for my business trips. I like to take pictures of people, but because of my work, this is not easy. It would look weird if I was running around with a camera… Overall, I prefer digital, but sometimes I am also playing with the film.”

New Media for Election 2010

Ukrainians started to use new technologies during the Presidential election campaign in 2010 in Ukraine. This year there were Twitter-election broadcast, online diaries of candidates, the popular social networks used, Ukrainian journalist Iryna Tuz writes in her article for “Radio Svoboda”. But experts say that these tools work not for the benefit of civil society yet.

Elections Online
On the website user Neman44 shares his impressions: “If you sum up the first impression of the elections, new-media opened my eyes.”
This is how his “tweet” looks – message on Tweeter, social network on microblogging. Naman 44 is Internet name for Olexiy Brytyuk from Lugansk. He is a community activist who was working as the election commission member during these elections. He was sending the latest information he saw on Twitter pages of different users in his text messages via his phone.

Olexiy Brytyuk – one of hundreds civil journalists involved in the project. This is Twitter’s broadcast of Ukrainian elections. Civil journalists are active citizens who create their own pages on the Internet and write blogs.
According to Olexiy Brytyuk, this election campaign is different from the previous one, because the candidates are trying to use the latest technologies. “I think the scales have changed to the side of the new media” – he said.