The New Age of Politics Online

This blog’s topic of “Politics Online” ties in quite nicely to a previous blog posting of mine about political news and advertising. The world of politics has used the age of technology to create new forums to reach out to new demographics and attempt to relate to more and more voters. These efforts have seen mixed results for candidates across the board, and there have been other repercussions of using the internet as a medium for getting messages out and names heard. In this blog I will discuss the internet as a medium for politics, its effect on political campaigns, and news media’s contributions and accessibility online.
Hollihan describes the internet as “a global computer network that enables users to send email, other forms of text messages, graphics, and video” (Hollihan, 199). With 88% of Americans aged 18-29 years old identifying themselves as internet users (ibid, 200), politicians would be crazy not to try and appeal to this demographic, which statistically has been the least active in terms of voter turnout, and historically has been labeled apathetic towards politics. In other words, to politicians this was an almost completely untapped group of potential voters that could sway the outcome of any election if only they felt that they had a reason to show up. The medium for these politicians to best communicate the issues that they feel are the most pertinent to this demographic is the internet. In addition, the low-cost of using the internet allows campaigns that would otherwise be little more than a footnote during an election to instead be able to connect with their grassroots support and become a very real contender for elected positions. Today some of the most common ways of getting through to young adults on the internet are posting videos on youtube.com, mass messages to anyone with an email address, and even enlisting friends through facebook, a social networking site used primarily (and up until the last year or two, almost exclusively) by the young adult demographic. All of these techniques were not only prevalent, but vital to success in the 2008 election, and if a candidate were to refuse to cater to this new medium, they would be ridden off almost immediately (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/politics/11paul.html).
The internet has been a vital part of political campaigns since 1990, when candidates started using email to convey campaign messages (Hollihan, 201). But when Jesse Ventura won the governorship of Minnesota using a campaign where almost two-thirds of his total funding was generated through the internet, that was when the internet really took off (ibid, 201). In 2008, Ron Paul’s campaign would have been over before it had even begun, but his fierce opposition to the war in Iraq and radical thoughts on abolishing the Federal Reserve were a hit among libertarian insiders. This underground popularity led to internet videos and reviews of Paul’s policies, and ultimately kept his presidential race alive. His campaign in fact would eventually have a day where over $4 million was raised, a record among Republican candidates that year, most of which had far more widespread and vocal followings than Paul’s (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/politics/11paul.html).
Another benefit of the internet in campaigns is the quick and comprehensive spread of information. In an age where ‘negative’ and ‘smear’ campaign ads are so prevalent (and effective), it is important for candidates to get their side of a story heard in order to keep the damage done by the smears to a minimum. The internet allows for any candidate to issue a statement or a position and know that the entire world will have access to it in a matter of minutes. This was prevalent in the Clinton vs. Dole campaign in 1996 where both candidates engaged in a game of one-ups-manship via emailed responses to supporters, media, and undecided voters. This is one strategy of the internet that can backfire, however. Dyson comments that in this age “politicians and pundits give instant rather than considered reactions” (Hollihan, 202), which may entice voters, but is certainly not always what candidates would prefer.
Another way that internet media in campaigning may have a negative impact on candidates is the access that the new age of technology creates for the general public. Any indiscretion by a candidate at any time can be caught on camera, and with camera phones and internet phones that are on the market today, that indiscretion can be posted online in mere minutes, instantly damaging credibility. That’s just today, but a frightening prospect looms on the horizon as well. Possibly within the next ten years, and certainly within the next fifteen, we will have a presidential candidate who had a profile on facebook during their college days, and pictures of them will still be out there. And unless that candidate lived under a rock, many of those pictures will probably be less than ‘presidential.’ At that point, the question will have to be asked whether or not the United States can deal with physical evidence that their president was once a kid too, or will they resort to simply electing the most sheltered candidate.
The internet has also allowed us to access political news online 24 hours a day. While the proportion of people who read a newspaper on a daily business has been steadily declining for years, the number of people who go online to get their daily news has climbed to 31% by 2004, rapidly approaching the numbers of daily newspaper readers (Hollihan, 209). 57% of people went online for election coverage during the 2004 campaigns, up from 4% in the 1996 elections, and 25% of the total adult population reported that they learned something online that influenced how they would vote that November (ibid, 209). Most of the time we would see this as a good thing and access to all kinds of information is never bad, but the question must be raised as to the quality of information that has been sought and attained via the internet in recent years. My blog on the concept of infotainment in the news media suggested that most of the major outlets online for political coverage have extreme biases towards one side of the aisle or the other, and yet a simple Google search for ‘political news’ pulls up CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News (the top three major infotainment outlets with complaints about party biases) in the top five results. Perhaps more startling is the fact that The Onion, a political satire newspaper, was also on the first page. While Americans would like to believe they are more informed as a result of the accessibility of news media online, the sad truth is that most Americans are simply getting the spin on issues that a particular party wants them to hear, and without digging a little bit deeper in search of unbiased information, most of them will take this information as true facts upon which to base their votes, a scary proposition.
As you can see, the subject of politics online has become vastly popular in recent years, and the potential for better-informed voters and an unprecedented number of options in candidates to vote for thanks to the wide availability of visibility over the internet is astounding. But the potential for abuse is also frightening, with lies and spin running rampant across cyberspace. Once again, this new availability of technology comes with new responsibilities for the American public, and we must work harder to find good sources of information and be careful of what we believe that is found online, as well as increase awareness of the dangers of believing everything online for those who may not have the ability to discover these things for themselves.

Hollihan, Thomas A. Uncivil Wars: Political Campaigns in a Media Age. 2nd ed. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. Print.