The Internet in modern political campaigning Introduction to the future of politics

Candidates face a number of problems communicating with voters Less and less attention to the news Less and less news of politics to pay attention to Anything other than presidential/senatorial is almost ignored “Transaction costs,” especially in contributing to campaigns Inability to provide more than ‘sound bite’ explanations of their policies Negative campaigning/advertising Members of electorate as “audience” rather than as constituents

The Internet The low costs and versatility of the Internet allow the candidate to address many of the problems outlined above The main Internet actions by candidates themselves have focused on: Fundraising (brilliant success for Obama) Providing extensive explanation of candidate positions Political organization and social networking Obama Distributing political advertising, etc. to targeted groups

Internet options Traditional websites E-mails to partisans Great majority of candidates now have them E-mails to partisans Social networking Facebook Podcasts Distribution of advertising Targeting Broadcasting

https://donate.barackobama.com/page/content/splashsignup_welcome http://www.johnmccain.com/splash32615.htm

Content outside of candidate control YouTube Facebook Blogs News sites Newspaper TV Webcasts of talk radio, etc. Chatrooms/listservs