Brussels, 26/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - MEPs make great use of modern technology to communicate and also to carry out research on various issues, reveals the second Fleishman-Hillard investigation into digital trends at the European Parliament, “European Parliament Digital Trends”. Most MEPs continue to use a wide range of communication tools, as in the previous survey, carried out in 2009. Personal contact and press releases are viewed as the most effective and direct means of communication, but what is changing is MEPs' use of social networks, which has doubled from 33% to 69%. Facebook is the most widely used social network but Twitter is gaining ground. Blogs are losing popularity, dropping from 49% to 29%. Three-quarters of the MEPs that use Twitter do so to express opinions rather than joining conversations, explains the survey. The creation of a personal website is seen as the most effective online communication tool. Many see video as having little influence. The survey shows that when doing research online, MEPs mainly look for media coverage about the subject in question and use the internet as a way of searching traditional media. Expert Steffen Thejll-Moller commented that the experts were curious to carry out the survey again to see whether MEPs' enthusiasm for the web was a blip under the influence of Obama's election campaign in 2009 or whether it marked a true change and use of the web in daily work. The new results show that 2009 was not a blip and despite falling use of blogs, MEPs still use the internet more in 2011 than they did in 2009. (I.L./transl.fl)