Politics on the Net: Wiring the Political Process
The U.S. Presidential elections are being fought in Main Street, on Wall Street — and on Broadband Avenue. YouTube, blogs, RSS feeds… those are all just as important as televised debates, robo-calls and TV advertisements.
Every four years, we see new technologies and new attention being given to the Internet. It’s easy to forget that despite the particular domains and file formats in Election 2008, this has been going on for better than a decade.
If you read (or re-read) Wayne Rash’s seminal book, “Politics on the Net: Wiring the Political Process,” published in 1997, you can see how far we’ve come. You’ll also see that much hasn’t really changed in the past few elections.
Sadly, Wayne’s book is out of print. You can still find used copies, or take it out of your local library.
This is a pleasant surprise. It’s been really interesting seeing how things have come to pass in the years since the book was written. What’s most interesting is how little has changed in some ways, and how much has changed in others.
For example, the primary focus of Internet use by the major political parties is still getting an unfiltered message to potential voters, bypassing the traditional media. And, as then, it’s used for organizational purposes ranging from getting crowds to rallies to getting e-mail to precinct workers.
However, what my book didn’t foresee was the blogger explosion, and the use of campaign Web sites for fundraising. Back in those days, bloggers didn’t exist at all, and e-commerce was only beginning to be reliable enough to trust it to raising money.
Another thing that’s changed? The Republican party was once the hotspot of innovation for political use of the Internet. Now it’s not.
Wayne Rash