New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen (Communication, Society and Politics)

The political campaign is one of the most important organizations in a democracy, and whether issue, or candidate, specific, it is one of the least understood organizations in contemporary political life. With evidence from ethnographic immersion, survey data, and social network analysis, Philip Howard examines the evolving act of political campaigning and the changing organization of political campaigns over the last five election cycles, from 1996 to 2004. Over this time, both grassroots and elite political campaigns have gone online, built multimedia strategies, and constructed complex relational databases. Cover......Page 1 Half-title......Page 3 Series-title......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 Title......Page 7 Copyright......Page 8 Contents......Page 9 Tables and Figures......Page 11 Acknowledgments......Page 13 Prologue: The Flows of Information in Competitive Politics......Page 18 Introduction: The Hypermedia Campaign......Page 25 The Evolution of Hypermedia Campaigns in the United States......Page 29 Political Computing......Page 30 1988......Page 31 1992......Page 32 1994......Page 33 1996......Page 34 1998......Page 35 2000......Page 37 2002......Page 38 2004......Page 40 Information Technology in Campaigns and Elections......Page 42 Outline of the Book......Page 53 ONE Political Communication and Information Technology......Page 57 Politics in Code......Page 58 Digital Democracy in Theory and Practice......Page 60 A Network Ethnography of Hypermedia Campaigns......Page 64 Political Consultants as a Cultural Industry......Page 67 Shared Goals and Projects......Page 68 Us/Them, In/Out......Page 72 “Getting It” and “This Space”......Page 74 Shared Ideology......Page 75 The Structural Code of Political Communication......Page 78 Political Objects......Page 79 Political Processes......Page 81 Political Events......Page 82 Political Memory......Page 83 Analytical Frames for Studying Politics and Information Technology......Page 84 Positive Political Effects......Page 86 Negative Political Effects......Page 88 Neutral Political Effects......Page 89 Cultural Approaches to Political Communication Systems......Page 90 Information Technologies as Cultural Schema......Page 93 TWO Producing the Hypermedia Campaign......Page 97 The Digital Leviathan......Page 99 The Opportunists at DataBank.com......Page 100 The Altruists at Astroturf-Lobby.org......Page 107 Hypermedia and Production of Public Opinion......Page 115 The Science of Private Opinion Measurement......Page 117 Of Grassroots and Astroturf......Page 122 THREE Learning Politics from the Hypermedia Campaign......Page 125 The Opportunists at Voting.com......Page 128 The Altruists at GrassrootsActivist.org......Page 142 Political Communication and the Open Information Market......Page 149 The Market for Political Information......Page 151 Democratic Representation through the Market?......Page 152 Political Redlining and Issue Publics......Page 155 Political Networks, Individually Constructed......Page 159 Political Contexts, Structurally Imposed......Page 161 FOUR Organizational Communication in the Hypermedia Campaign......Page 167 The Development of Campaign Organization......Page 169 Ideologue Elites, Capo Managers, and Coding Generals......Page 172 Information Processes and Organizational Behavior in Political Campaigns......Page 176 A Theory of Epistemic Heterarchy......Page 186 Power and Social Control in the Hypermedia Campaign......Page 192 FIVE Managed Citizenship and Information Technology......Page 194 The Wizards of Odds......Page 195 DataBank.com and Voting.com......Page 196 GrassrootsActivist.org and Astroturf-Lobby.org......Page 199 Deviance and Decisions......Page 200 The Organization of Normative Deviance......Page 203 Citizenship in the Digital Democracy......Page 206 Thin, Shadow, and Privatized Citizenship......Page 208 Political Schemata Rationalized in Code......Page 215 Randomness and Disengagement in the Public Sphere......Page 220 Policy and Process for the Healthy Digital Democracy......Page 222 Appendix: Method Notes on Studying Information Technology and Political Communication......Page 229 Methodological Challenges in Studying Hypermedia Organizations......Page 232 Unbundled Social Cues and Territoriality......Page 234 Problems and Prospects of Ethnography......Page 237 Problems and Prospects of Social Network Analysis......Page 239 Network Ethnography......Page 241 Network Ethnography Applied......Page 243 An Example: Confirming Field Observations......Page 247 Conclusion......Page 250 Glossary......Page 263 References......Page 269 Index......Page 285 The political campaign is one of the most important organizations in a democracy, and whether issue- or candidate-specific, it is one of the least understood organizations in contemporary political life. This book is a critical assessment of the role that information technologies have come to play in contemporary campaigns. With evidence from ethnographic immersion, survey data, and social network analysis, Philip Howard examines the evolving act of political campaigning and the changing organization of political campaigns over the last five election cycles, from 1996 to 2004. Over this time, both grassroots and elite political campaigns have gone online, built multimedia strategies, and constructed complex relational databases. The contemporary political campaign adopts digital technologies that improve reach and fund-raising and at the same time adapts its organizational behavior. The new system of producing political culture has immense implications for the meaning of citizenship and the basis of representation. The political campaign is one of the most important organizations in a democracy, and whether issue or candidate specific, it is one of the least understood organizations in contemporary political life. This book is a critical assessment of the role that information technologies have come to play in contemporary campaigns. With evidence from ethnographic immersion, survey data, and social network analysis, Howard examines the evolving act of political campaigning and the changing organization of political campaigns over the last five election cycles, from 1996 to 2004. Over this time, both grassroots and elite political campaigns have gone online, built multimedia strategies, and constructed complex relational databases. The contemporary political campaign adopts digital technologies that improve reach and fundraising, and at the same time adapts their organizational behavior. The new system of producing political culture has immense implications for the meaning of citizenship and the basis of representation. "The political campaign is one of the most important organizations in a democracy, and whether issue- or candidate-specific, it is one of the least understood organizations in contemporary political life. This book is a critical assessment of the role that information technologies have come to play in contemporary campaigns. With evidence from ethnographic immersion, survey data, and social network analysis, Philip Howard examines the evolving act of political campaigning and the changing organization of political campaigns over the last five election cycles, from 1996 to 2004"--Jacket