Did the internet change the election and how it was reported, or did television dominate as in the past? Is Andy Sparrow of the Guardian right that Twitter has become "the newswire of choice" for journalists? And is the internet changing the way political parties relate to voters, even if in this election it was not the dominant medium.
These were some of the questions Rory Cellan-Jones (above right) posed as he chaired the second session of the Value of Journalism conference. His panel were Sir Robert Worcester of MORI; Mark Pack, the Liberal Democrat blogger; Douglas Alexander MP (above left), from the Labour Party campaign; Rishi Saha, the Conservative party online strategist; and Laura Kuenssberg (below), the BBC political correspondent and Twitter star.
Rory referred to what he said was the best analysis of this topic so far - Anthony Painter's Orange digital campaign report. One of its conclusions is that the campaign was not driven online but, interestingly, almost a quarter of 18- to 24-year-olds engaged in conversation about the campaign through social media.
The panellists began by deflating an old myth about old media. Bob Worcester pointed out that Sun readers had already switched to supporting Cameron before the Sun actually endorsed him. (Not surprising, given that a newspaper business needs to stay close to its readers.)
Mark Pack, the Liberal Democrat blogger, then noted that old media had left gaps where new media could move in, particularly at local level. He said that Lynne Featherstone, the Lib Dem candidate, now MP, for Hornsey and Wood Green, had a direct online audience bigger in number than the local newspaper circulations.
But for Douglas Alexander the surprise had been that the internet did not play a much bigger role. He said the three events which stood out were all on television: the debates, Gillian Duffy and the spat on Sky between Alastair Campbell and Adam Boulton.
"Social media is where the conversation happens; it's not the conversation itself," he said.
He'd expected, given the "low-trust environment" after the expenses row, that the result might have been worse for Labour - so what went right? He said that, borrowing from the Obama campaign, Labour aimed for a conversation with voters and built their campaign around word of mouth and direct contact with supporters, not top-down advertising. What he hadn't anticipated was the effect of the debates, but he said the uncertainty they generated about the outcome gave a useful boost to Labour activists.
The Conservative online strategist Rishi Saha questioned the wisdom of drawing conclusions from the small number who access political information online. He said the party had learned that what Westminster-based journalists wrote about was not that useful to it.
Nor should social media users be seen as a representative sample of the electorate. The numbers Tweeting on the leadership debates was small - in the tens of thousands - compared to the millions watching.
During the debates, a graphic 'worm' tracked viewers reactions (up or down) to the leaders. The Facebook worm users' responses were the opposite of people in representatively drawn focus groups (not surprising since the majority of social media users are young). And Rishi cautioned against applying new media conclusions from the Obama campaign to the UK, where old media - papers and broadcasters - have a far higher reach.
Douglas Alexander MP agreed that a presidential campaign is different from a campaign in a parliamentary democracy.
Laura Kuenssberg has 23,000 followers on Twitter, but she pointed out that most online activity is carried out by a small group of people, often already politically active. She uses Twitter for breaking news or to add colour - not for private information or gossip: "As a lobby journalist you can see colour that your audience can't, so Twitter is a good way to bring it to them." For example, her Tweet about Vince Cable ignoring his chauffeur-driven car in Downing Street.
But, disagreeing with Andy Sparrow, she said social media aren't yet a significant news source, and could think of only one example so far of an important story to emerge through this route - the Damian McBride story via Guido Fawkes (although Fawkes did not break this on his blog - he hawked it to a newspaper).
Lots of questions remain, not least since the biggest increase in turnout was among 18- to 24-year-olds and this is where the Lib Dems got their biggest share of the vote - was that partly to do with social media?
In the meantime, it may be wise to log a new buzz phrase, from Anthony Painter's Orange digital campaign report: "Retail politics will increasingly be replaced by conversational politics." Listen up!
You can watch the whole discussion here.
