Candidate.ie ASSIGNMENT

Candidate.ie is an experimental research project which aims to track social media activity in the forthcoming Irish General Election campaign. It’s a pretty straightforward idea – collect links to every candidate’s profile on social networking sites and present them along with their rivals in each constituency. In that way, visitors to the site can easily find links to their local candidate’s profiles.


For this assignment we have to pick a politician who will be running for the 2011 Irish general election and follow their use of the internet during their campaign.

I chose to follow the politician Pearse Doherty in the run up to the election.


About my chosen TD

Pearse Doherty, from Gweedore, is the Sinn Féin TD for Donegal South West and a member of the party's Ard Chomhairle.

Pearse Doherty TD is the Oireachtas party spokesperson on Finance.

A civil engineer by profession, Pearse is a strong supporter of the Irish Language and an avid GAA supporter. A member of Sinn Féin since 1994 he has served on the national executive of Ógra Shinn Féin.

He is an outspoken critic of the failure of successive governments to invest in the infrastructure of Donegal, something which is leading to job losses. He is involved in many campaigns to end the marginalisation of Donegal and to bring forward innovative proposals to develop the North West as a whole.

Tá Piaras, atá cáilithe mar innealtóir sibhialta, ina bhall de Sinn Féin ó 1994. Bhí sé ar dhuine de chomhbhunaitheoirí Ógra Shinn Féin, áit a raibh freagrachtaí aige mar oifigeach feachtais agus slógaidh ar an Choiste Feidhmiúcháin ó 1998 go 2001.

The following link is to his official wordpress blog:

http://www.pearsedoherty.ie/wordpress/






Interesting Article about P.Doherty:
IS PEARSE DOHERTY THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN IRELAND?


Most recent Tweet:
"Just left Dept of Finance. Lab & FG agreed to facilitate Finance Bill in a grubby little deal. Dail to be dissolved between Sat & Tue."