Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age

Author(s):  
Jennifer Stromer-Galley

Presidential candidates and their campaigns in the United States are fully invested in the use of social media. Yet, since 1996 presidential campaigns have been experimenting with ways to use digital communication technologies on the Internet to their advantage. This book tells the stories of the practices of campaigning online between 1996 and 2016, looking at winners and also-rans. The stories provide rich details of the factors that contribute to the success or failure of candidates, including the influence of digital media. The stories also show how political campaigns over six election cycles transitioned from the paradigm of mass media campaigning, to networked campaigning, and finally to mass-targeted campaigning. Campaigns shifted from efforts at mass persuasion to networked persuasion by identifying and communicating with super-supporters to give them the right digital tools and messages to take to their social network. Campaigns learned over time how to use the Internet’s interactive affordances to communicate with the public in ways that structures what supporters do for the campaign that maximizes strategic benefit—what I call “controlled interactivity.” By the 2016 campaign, technology companies made it easier and more effective to engage in mass-targeted campaigning—using large-scale data analytics by campaigns and tech companies to identify target audiences for campaigns to advertise to online.

2019 ◽  
pp. 141-152
Author(s):  
Norbert Tomaszewski

Modern political campaigns in the United States need to combine the use of traditional and new media in order to let the candidate win. The emergement of social media allowed the campaign staffs to create a bond with the voter, through sharing and evaluating the content uploaded by the candidate. Nowadays, with the help of the internet, candidate is able to spend less time and money on the campaign, while interacting with a much bigger number of followers. The internet, however, is a rather new invention and only in the 21st century more than 50% of Americans started to use it on a daily basis. The study aims at determining how did the presidential candidates in the United States try to attract the voter with the help of the World Wide Web – what is more, it’s goal is to answer what kind of voter used the internet back in the 20th century and what kind of candidate would have the biggest chance to attract him.


Public Choice ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vuk Vukovic

AbstractIn 2008, as the financial crisis unfolded in the United States, the banking industry elevated its lobbying and campaign spending activities. By the end of 2008, and during 2009, the biggest political spenders, on average, received the largest bailout packages. Is that relationship causal? In this paper, I examine the effect of political connections on the allocation of funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to the US financial services industry during the 2008–2009 financial crisis. I find that TARP recipients that lobbied the government, donated to political campaigns, or whose top executives had direct connections to politics received better bailout deals. I estimate regression discontinuity design and instrumental variable models to uncover how election outcomes for politicians in close races affected the distribution of bailout funds for connected firms. The results do not imply that some banks were deliberately favored over others, just that favored banks benefited because of their proximity to the right people in power. If being politically connected matters in general, in times of crisis it matters even more.


Author(s):  
Ahmet Sarıtaş ◽  
Elif Esra Aydın

Today, using of the internet extended social media by individuals habitually enables both the business firms and politicians to reach their target mass at any time. In this context, internet has become a popular place recently where political communication and campaigns are realized by ensuring a new dimension to political campaigns. When we examine the posts and discussions in the social media, we can say that they are converted into open political sessions. As there are no censorship in such channels, individuals have a freedom to reach to any partial/impartial information and obtain transparent and fast feedback, and with this regard, political parties, leaders and candidates have a chance to be closer to electors. In this study, it is aimed to give information about the social media, present what medium has been used for election campaigns from the past until today and besides, by considering the effects of effective and efficient use of social media and new trends related to the internet by politicians, together with their applications in the world, to make suggestions about its situation and application in Turkey.


Author(s):  
Rachel Baarda

Digital media is expected to promote political participation in government. Around the world, from the United States to Europe, governments have been implementing e-government (use of of the Internet to make bureaucracy more efficient) and promising e-democracy (increased political participation by citizens). Does digital media enable citizens to participate more easily in government, or can authoritarian governments interfere with citizens' ability to speak freely and obtain information? This study of digital media in Russia will show that while digital media can be used by Russian citizens to gain information and express opinions, Kremlin ownership of print media, along with censorship laws and Internet surveillance, can stifle the growth of digital democracy. Though digital media appears to hold promise for increasing citizen participation, this study will show that greater consideration needs to be given to the power of authoritarian governments to suppress civic discourse on the Internet.


Author(s):  
Jack Goldsmith ◽  
Tim Wu

If you had met Jon Postel in 1998, you might have been surprised to learn that you were in the presence of one of the Internet’s greatest living authorities. He had a rambling, ragged look, living in sandals and a large, unkempt beard. He lived like a modern-day Obi-Wan Kenobi, an academic hermit who favored solitary walks on the Southern California beach. When told once by a reporter that readers were interested in learning more about his personal life, he answered: “If we tell them, they won’t be interested anymore.” Yet this man was, and had been for as long as anyone could remember, the ultimate authority for assignment of the all-important Internet Protocol (IP) numbers that are the essential feature of Internet membership. Like the medallions assigned to New York City taxicabs, each globally unique number identifies a computer on the Net, determining who belongs and who doesn’t. “If the Net does have a God,” wrote the Economist in 1997, “he is probably Jon Postel.” Jon Postel was a quiet man who kept strong opinions and sometimes acted in surprising ways. The day of January 28, 1998, provided the best example. On that day Postel wrote an e-mail to the human operators of eight of the twelve “name servers” around the globe. Name servers are the critical computers that are ultimately responsible for making sure that when you type a name like google.com you reach the right address (123.23.83.0). On that day Postel asked the eight operators, all personally loyal to Postel, to recognize his computer as the “root,” or, in essence, the master computer for the whole Internet. The operators complied, pointing their servers to Postel’s computer instead of the authoritative root controlled by the United States government. The order made the operators nervous—Paul Vixie, one of the eight, quietly arranged to have someone look after his kids in case he was arrested. Postel was playing with fire. His act could have divided the Internet’s critical naming system into two gigantic networks, one headed by himself, the other headed by the United States. He engineered things so that the Internet continued to run smoothly. But had he wanted to during this critical time, he might have created chaos.


Stalking ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham D. Glancy ◽  
Alan W. Newman

Cyberstalking involves the use of the Internet or other electronic communication to stalk another person. Already common, it is likely to become more common as the use of the Internet continues to grow. The characteristics of online stalkers and their victims have some differences from those of the offline stalker. Mullen, Pathé, Purcell, and Stuart’s (1999) classification may apply to cyberstalkers except for the apparently common phenomenon of child luring that may be a new category. The methods of cyberstalking, as described in this chapter, are particularly ingenious. We know little about the effect on victims, but postulate that it is similar to offline stalking. We make some suggestions that may prevent cyberstalking, as well as offer some steps to bear in mind once cyberstalking occurs. The proliferation of personal computers with Internet access in the last decade has raised concerns about a new phenomenon known as cyberstalking. The Internet can be used to annoy and harass large numbers of victims in a generic manner by disseminating computer viruses, Internet scams, and “spamming” people with unsolicited e-mail. In 1999 Janet Reno, the attorney general of the United States, defined cyberstalking as the use of the Internet, e-mail, or other electronic communications devices to stalk another person (Reno, 1999). Barak (2005) looked at the issue of sexual harassment on the Internet. He characterizes cyberstalking as one type of sexual coercion. He notes that online behavior is characterized by disinhibition, openness, venture, and bravado—an atmosphere characterized by typical masculine attitudes. He argues that the lack of legal boundaries or enforcement vehicles encourage people to do what they would not have done in offline situations. He notes the near impossibility of implementation of legal procedures on a large scale. In this chapter we will discuss what is known about the prevalence of this phenomenon, the types of cyberstalking, and what is known about the perpetrators. In addition, we will generate some hypotheses about the comparison between online and offline stalkers. We will also discuss the effects on victims and current thoughts and resources for dealing with cyberstalking.


2001 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randy Elliot Bennett

Large-scale assessment in the United States is undergoing enormous pressure to change. That pressure stems from many causes. Depending upon the type of test, the issues precipitating change include an outmoded cognitive-scientific basis for test design; a mismatch with curriculum; the differential performance of population groups; a lack of information to help individuals improve; and inefficiency. These issues provide a strong motivation to reconceptualize both the substance and the business of large-scale assessment. At the same time, advances in technology, measurement, and cognitive science are providing the means to make that reconceptualization a reality. The thesis of this paper is that the largest facilitating factor will be technological, in particular the Internet. In the same way that it is already helping to revolutionize commerce, education, and even social interaction, the Internet will help revolutionize the business and substance of large-scale assessment.


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