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

2. 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

3. 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

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

5. https://donate.barackobama.com/page/content/splashsignup_welcome

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