Campaigns Online

Campaigns Utilizes Internet Tools and Strategies to Win in 2006

Blogging, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Online Donations, and Online Organizing and Communications are Key Aspect of Political Campaigns

In this year's mid-term election, the Internet has proven to be the necessary tool for campaigning on all levels. Campaigns have developed sophisticated Internet tools to enhance their campaigns, targeting young and web-savvy voters.

Americans have embraced the Internet to connect to the political process. Online campaigning has revolutionized political communication, grassroots activism, supporter outreach, and fundraising.

"With so many close elections this year, the Internet has played a pivotal role in fundraising, organizing, and get out the vote efforts," said Alexis Rice, Project Director of CampaignsOnline.org and Fellow at the Center for the Study of American Government at Johns Hopkins University. "Campaigns have embraced Internet strategies to stay competitive."

Blogging has become an essential part of political campaigns, with campaigns, special interest groups, and national political parities not only creating blogs, but hiring paid bloggers to write on their behalf on "independent" blogs.

Campaigns utilized their own blogs to present their unfiltered message and brought supporters together to form a new online community. Campaigns have also reached out to bloggers in a similar way they have always reached out to the mainstream press, sometimes even giving bloggers more access to their campaigns than mainstream press.

Campaigns continue to depend on online donations and are utilizing e-mail and blogs to rally and communicate with their supporters and solicit donations.

This year the use of social networking tools, like Facebook.com and Myspace.com, has emerged as a new way to connect and get involve young voters in campaigns. Additionally, the video site, YouTube.com has become a clearinghouse of campaign ads and video highlighting campaign activities.

"In the 2006 election, the Internet has again proved its power; showing it is a place to organize, inform, and raise funds easily," said Rice.

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CampaignsOnline.org, a website and blog project, is a nonpartisan research and educational project of the Center for the Study of American Government at Johns Hopkins University. CampaignsOnline.org has been profiling trends in online campaigning since 2003 and released the first academic research on political blogging in 2003.

The mission of CampaignsOnline.org is to promote improvements and understanding in the usage of the Internet and emerging technologies in political campaigns.

Contact: Campaigns Online
202-487-7017
arice@campaignsonline.org

The New Power of Facebook

The LA Times today profiles the power of Facebook in political campaigns, and notes:

"The 10 million members of Facebook.com — the social networking website that's a fixture on college campuses — aren't using it just to check out potential dates or keep track of old high school buddies. They're increasingly using it, and other Internet tools, to get involved in politics."

When Blogs Attack

In Connecticut's Second Congressional District, Democratic challenger Joseph Courtney's campaign has charged that a former campaign worker for Rep. Rob Simmons (R-CT) is responsible for an Internet blog with "offensive" images that attacks on Courtney.

According to the Norwich Bulletin the blog includes, "a video with images of dead bodies which appear to be related to the Holocaust, criticizing Courtney's health-care program and other images calling the Democratic candidate a communist."

Fake Campaign Bloggers?

Liberal bloggers in New Hampshire have busted a staff member to Rep. Charles Bass (R-NH) for using government computers to make fake posting on liberal blogs.

Roll Call reported on the story today.

Invading Cyberspace

There is an article in the  Pittsburgh Tribune-Review today on how political campaigns have "invaded cyberspace" and discover video blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook.

The article notes:

This year's Internet-based campaign focus is unprecedented. And it's mostly aimed at younger voters who are more apt to watch streaming video on a computer instead of the evening news.

Beware What You Write on Your Personal Blog

Recently a staffer for the Senate campaign of Rep. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) was fired for keeping a personal blog about her experiences during the campaign that included racial and ethnic slurs.

The story first broke on the political blog Wizbang Politics and now has been reporter all over the mainstream press.

Democrats Forget About their Blog in Spanish

In January 2006, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) started a Spanish language blog, Blog /Foro Latino, on their website. It seemed like a great idea to reach out to Spanish speakers by using a blog, except they forgot to post to it. Since the launch of the blog in January 2006 there has only been eight posting, with the last posting in July.

No Chatter on the National Republican Congressional Committee Blog

Look at recent postings on the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Blog. First the posting are very long, but scroll all the way down to the comments section and you will notice there are no comments. So I went to add one and got a message:

You must be a NRCC.org Volunteer to post a Blog Comment.

Please click here to sign-up today.

So is the issue the their "online volunteers" don't like to share their opinions???

The links takes you to a page to sign up for their e-mails.

It's Been A While...

It been a while, but we are back to writing!!! Already campaigns in 2006 are starting up there websites ( and lets not forget their are elections in 2005 to look at).

And then there are political bloggers... they seem to be EVERYWHERE! mainstream media still feels like they are missing out and incorporating blogs everywhere they can.

Blogging for News

When I started this blog most people had no clue what a blog was or why I would do academic research on this subject.

Now bloggers are everywhere and it now seems the “in” thing to have a blog. Some bloggers have become online celebrities and even paid political pundits. Successful bloggers are making money through ad revenue on their blogs or by “someone” paying them to promote their agenda (we hope they at least disclosed this) in their blog postings.

Academics and the media industry has taken noticed. Ethical questions and professional integrity are a major concern for independent blogging.

The question I keep getting asked is “Is blogging a fad ?” “Is this just all hype?”

The answer is no.

Blogging will evolve just like websites did in the mid-1990’s. Many people created independent websites for news and then traditional media saw this threat and established online news sites. Traditional media is now doing this with blogging, as it seems news outlets now must have blogs on their website. Independent bloggers will be enticed with money to work for big media and bring their loyal readers along.