The internet in U.S. election campaigns

Abstract

The advent and popularization of the internet has generated a great deal of hype about its potential to invigorate electoral politics. Dick Morris, former advisor to President Clinton, suggested that a “fifth estate” of internet politics would alter the balance of political power in the United States by linking people together (Morris, 1999). The early success of Howard Dean’s campaign on the internet led one journalist to ask in 2003, “what will happen when a national political machine can fit on a laptop?” (Ehrlich, 2003). Dean’s campaign manager, Joe Trippi, claimed that the internet would do nothing short of revolutionize electoral politics (Trippi, 2004). Indeed, by 2006, the internet had changed the way candidates conduct campaigns. Congressional candidates were using the internet for fundraising, blogging, creating online communities, making video and audio clips available, and much more. In January of 2007, Hillary Clinton announced her run for the presidency on her website by wayof a short video titled “Let the Conversation Begin.” This chapter examines the specific waysin which candidates and parties have used the internet in their campaigns. The main focus is on candidates for national office in the United States. The subject is important for several reasons. First, because it is a considerably less expensive medium than television, the internet holds the potential to level the playing field for outsider candidates and minor parties. Although major party candidates are still advantaged in terms of their ability to carry their message to the public (Margolis, Resnick, and Levy 2003), the existence of the internet as a campaign tool offers citizens more choice, thus potentially enhancing candidate options. Second, as an unfiltered medium, candidates and parties are able to “get their message out” through bypassing traditional media gatekeepers in order to reach groups of interested voters (Graber, 2006). The internet is also a sophisticated and relatively inexpensive communicationstool that like-minded citizens, candidate, and party organizations can use to interact with each other and mobilize support. To begin, we review the short history ofinternet campaigning, focusing on how the use of the medium has evolved. We divide this discussion into three sections, each corresponding to a particular phase of the development of internet campaigning. In the discovery phase, which dates from about 1992 until 1999, candidates, parties, and groups began experimenting with the internet and exploring its possible electoral uses. By the presidential campaign of 2000, the internet campaign had reached a maturation phase. At that point, the vast majority of major-party candidates for federal elections, and many state-level candidates, maintained websites throughout the campaign. Political campaign websites no longer lagged behind their commercial counterparts in terms of interactivity, integration of server-side and database technologies, and aesthetic sophistication. Internet campaigns entered yet anotherphase in the 2006 congressional election cycle and this continued through the 2008 presidential campaign. By this time, virtually all serious candidates for national political office had fairly sophisticated websites that professionals maintained. In this new phase, candidates, parties, and interest groups have turned their attention beyond their own websites to other venues. Campaign organizations, in particular, have begun to carry the campaign to blogs, social networking sites such as Facebook, and other quasi-media forums such as YouTube.

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