America in context

U.S. Elections 2008: How the Internet Is Changing the Playing Field

The Internet has revolutionized communication over the last decade, bringing people together for every imaginable purpose. The author discusses several online innovations that have come into play in the political arena, as candidates and — even more creatively — citizens use technology to influence voters.

Andy Carvin

The 2008 U.S. general election will no doubt be a watershed year in American history but not necessarily because of any particular candidate or policy. As has been the case in recent election cycles, the Internet has become a potent political tool in terms of campaigning, fundraising, and civic engagement. What is making this particular election cycle so interesting, though, is that much of the innovation taking place isn being done by the campaigns or the politicians but by the American public.

Internet access is by no means a new phenomenon in the United States. Beginning in the mid-1990s, millions of Americans have acquired Internet access and technology skills, whether at home, at work, or at school. According to a June 2007 report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 71 percent of all American adults had Internet access at home, while nearly 50 percent of adults had high-speed broadband access.

Similarly, the vast majority of U.S. public schools and libraries are online. There are still gaps in terms of access and skills among disenfranchised populations, particularly when it comes to education and income levels, as well as among the elderly, people with disabilities, and ethnic minorities. But the general trend over the last decade has been significant growth in Internet penetration.

As the American public first began to go online, much of the content available over the Internet was produced by professionals or people with technological expertise. Online publishing required prerequisite technological skills, as well as the ability to produce large amounts of polished content. In particular, audio and video online was generally considered the realm of major media outlets.

This did not mean, however, that the Internet was devoid of content produced by the public. Starting in the late 1990s, an ever-growing number of people began to publish their own personal journals, or Web logs, about the daily goings-on of their lives. Some were interesting; many of them weren . But the idea of Web logs, or blogs, struck enough of a nerve with some online developers that they began to design tools to make it easier for anyone to publish text online. This phenomenon quickly developed its own terminology, among which Web 2.0 and social media have become some of the most common ways of describing these trends.

Virtual Communities

A growing number of Internet users also began participating in online communities. These communities were not a new phenomenon by any means — e-mail groups and online bulletin board communities have been around since the 1970s — but as Internet use became more mainstream, the types of groups being formed online became mainstream as well. Rather than being dominated by technology-oriented groups, people started forming online communities around geographic communities, such as towns or neighborhoods, as well as communities of interest, like hobbies or professional associations.

By the early 2000s, blogging, in particular, had taken off in earnest, with thousands of people creating their own blogs. In a matter of years, those thousands would become millions. It didn take long for some people to publish diaries around political issues. Soon bloggers were rallying the troops around like-minded political causes or candidates. They also began to use online community tools to coordinate interaction among each other.

One of the best-known early examples of these grassroots online communities — or netroots as they
e also known — is the Howard Dean presidential campaign of 2004. Previously considered by the media and political pundits as a third-tier candidate, Dean galvanized enormous support online through the use of blogs, mass e-mail campaigns, and online community discussions. Soon Dean was receiving political support, including campaign contributions, from thousands of people around the country. As his online profile increased, mainstream media outlets began covering him more as well, taking notice of his fundraising successes and netroots popularity. Almost out of nowhere, he became a political force to be reckoned with. Though ultimately he lost the Democratic Party nomination, his successful online organizing techniques helped develop an online infrastructure of liberal activists prepared to mobilize around other causes.

Other netroots campaigns predated the Dean campaign and continue to this day. For example, the founders of a San Francisco-area software company began e-mailing friends and colleagues in 1997, asking them to urge their elected officials to end the impeachment process against then President Bill Clinton and to move on to other policy issues. The e-mail campaign resonated so well that their friends and colleagues started passing along the e-mails to other people. Over time, this small campaign organized itself into an ongoing public policy organization focused on progressive causes, in particular ending the war in Iraq. MoveOn.org is now one of the most powerful political action committees in America, with millions of Internet users participating in their e-mail-based political campaigns.

UGC and Social Networks

By the 2006 congressional elections, there were two new Internet trends that presented examples of things to come during the 2008 cycle. First, weve witnessed an explosion of whats often described as user-generated content, or UGC. UGC is essentially any type of online material produced by amateurs, including text, photos, audio, and video. One internationally known example of UGC is the footage of Saddam Husseins execution, shot on a mobile phone. While the Iraqi government released an official piece of video documenting the preparations for the execution, it was the user-generated content, shot by an onlooker at the execution, that caused worldwide headlines.

There is no shortage of user-generated content on the Internet, thanks to Web sites that specialize in sharing multimedia content, such as YouTube (for video) and Flickr (for photography). According to research published in 2006 by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, approximately 40 million Americans had published some form of UGC online, while one in seven U.S. Internet users maintained a blog.

During the 2006 election cycle, no incident captured the power of UGC more than the so-called macaca moment.

While campaigning for reelection, Virginia Senator George Allen was regularly followed by a young man named S.R. Sidarth, who was working for the campaign of his challenger, Jim Webb. Sidarths role was to record Allens public appearances on video, in order to capture everything he said publicly, in case it could be used by the Webb campaign. On a campaign visit in August of that year, Allen publicly acknowledged Sidarths presence to participants at the rally, referring to Sidarth on two occasions as Macaca. Sidarth, who is of Indian descent, posted the video clip of Allens comments on YouTube and other Web sites, where it was soon viewed by hundreds of thousands of Internet users. Soon the video became a major campaign issue, as Allen had to fend off charges that the word macaca, which is a genus of primate, was used in a racially derogatory way. Allen apologized and maintained that the word held no derogatory meaning to him. Later that November, Allen lost his reelection bid by a narrow vote, and many commentators speculated that the user-generated content shot by Sidarth played a role in Jim Webbs defeat of Allen.

User-generated content probably would never have become a major force in online politics if it weren for a second important trend: the growth of online social networks. Online communities have been around since the earliest days of the Internet. But in the last several years, the number and size of online communities have grown significantly as technology improved and made it easier for users to upload their own content and interact with each other. Sites such as MySpace and Facebook expanded from niche communities used by teenagers and college students to online powerhouses with tens of millions of members. According to a July 2007 report from Ipsos Inc., 24 percent of U.S. Internet users have participated in a social network within the previous month, while one-third of all online users have downloaded video. Candidates during the 2006 races took advantage of these trends by creating personal online profiles on major social networking sites, while some uploaded campaign ads and other multimedia materials as well.

Online Innovations for 2008

The 2006 election cycle was just a sampling of what we would see for 2008. Since the previous presidential election campaign, would-be candidates began to take social networking one step further by creating social networks dedicated specifically to their campaigns. In particular, Democratic candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards have stood out with their sizeable social networks, using these tools to rally their supporters and, of course, drive contributions to their campaign coffers.

Candidates of both major political parties have embraced online video as a natural way of interacting with their bases, some of them going so far as to announce their candidacy by way of streaming video.

Just as candidates have started to create their own social networks, we are now seeing a whole new trend in which members of the public are creating their own as well, rallying like-minded individuals around political concerns they share. Do-it-yourself social networks were unheard of even in the autumn of 2006, but in the brief time span since then, online tools such as Ning.com now make it possible for anyone to craft a niche-oriented social network. Now individuals, as well as upstart campaigns with limited finances, can use these tools to forge a netroots base.

There has also been the recent development of social networks that specifically focus on fundraising. One of the most interesting is a site called Change.org. Originally founded to allow individuals to rally around charitable causes, the social network redesigned its structure to allow people to come together to support political causes or candidates. For example, a group of gun-rights activists could use the site to form an informal political action committee and raise funds in support of candidates who agree with their policy positions. If the actual candidate hasn been selected yet, Change.org will hold the money in escrow until the relevant political party nominates him or her. And when a candidate officially receives the money from these online activists, his or her opponent receives a letter stating that the other candidate received Change.orgs money, putting the opponent on notice that citizens are raising money against them because of their position on the issue.

In summary, while Campaign 2008 has yet to run its course, one thing is for certain. The Internet has forever changed the way candidates and the U.S. electorate interact with each other. More than the top one or two candidates can be successful with fundraising, and the candidates can no longer completely control their messaging. The public has embraced Web 2.0 tools to make their voices heard; now its just a matter of seeing how well the candidates listen.

Additional Readings and Links:

Guide to the 2008 Elections website

Online sources for information about the U.S. electoral process

A Fresh Start A Look at the Unique Aspects of the 2008 Elections
An Interview with Charlie Cook and Jerry Hagstrom

About the Author:
Andy Carvin is former director of the Digital Divide Network [http://www.digitaldivide.net] and writes a blog called Learning.now for the Public Broadcasting Service [http://www.pbs.org].