Techno Politics In Presidential Campaigning

The 2008 US presidential campaign saw politicians utilizing all types of new media -- Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, e-mail, and cell phone texting – to reach voters of all ages, ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds, and sexual orientations. This volume examines the use of these media and considers the effectiveness of reaching voters through these channels. It explores not only the use of new media and technologies but also the role these tactics played in attracting new voters and communicating with the electorate during the 2008 presidential debates. Chapters focus on how the technologies were used by candidates, the press, and voters.

This volume examines the use of new media and technologies to reach voters in the 2008 US Presidential campaigns, and the role these tactics played in attracting new voters and communicating with the electorate. Chapters focus on how the technologies were used by candidates, the press, and voters.

Although many developments surrounding the Internet campaign are now considered to be standard fare, there were a number of new developments in 2016. Drawing on original research conducted by leading experts, The Internet and the 2016 Presidential Campaign attempts to cover these developments in a comprehensive fashion. How are campaigns making use of the Internet to organize and mobilize their ground game? To communicate their message? The book also examines how citizens made use of online sources to become informed, follow campaigns, and participate. Contributions also explore how the Internet affected developments in media reporting, both traditional and non-traditional, about the campaign. What other messages were available online, and what effects did these messages have had on citizen’s attitudes and vote choice? The book examines these questions in an attempt to summarize the 2016 online campaign.

As we enter a new millennium, it is clear that we are in the midst of one of the most dramatic technological revolutions in history that is changing everything from the ways that we work, communicate, participate in politics, and spend our leisure time. The technological revolution centers on computer, information, communication, and multimedia technologies, is often interpreted as the beginnings of a knowledge or information society, and therefore ascribes technologies a central role in every aspect of life. This Great Transformation poses tremendous challenges to critical social theorists, citizens, and educators to rethink their basic tenets, to deploy the media in creative and productive ways, and to restructure the workplace, social institutions, and schooling to respond constructively and progressively to the technological and social changes that we are now experiencing.

Presidential campaigns are our national conversations – the widespread and complex communication of issues, images, social reality, and personas. Political communication specialists break down the 2012 presidential campaign and go beyond the quantitative facts, electoral counts, and poll results of the election, to make sense of the “political bits” of communication that comprise our voting choices. The contributors look at the early campaign period, the nomination process and conventions, the social and political contexts, the debates, the role of candidate spouses, candidate strategies, political strategies, and the use of the Internet and other technologies.

Much has been made of the speed and constancy of modern politics. Whether watching cable news, retweeting political posts, or receiving news alerts on our phones, political communication now happens continuously and in real time. Traditional research methods often do not capture this dynamic environment. Early studies that guided the study of political communication took place at a time when transistors and FM radio, television, and widely distributed films technologically changed the way people gained information and developed knowledge of the world around them. Now, the environment has transformed again through digital innovations. This book provides one of the first systematic assessment of real-time methods used to study the new digital media environment. It features twelve chapters—authored by leading researchers in the field—using continuous or real time response methods to study political communication in various forms. Moreover, the authors explain how viewer attitudes can be measured over time, message effects can be pin-­pointed down to the second of impact, behaviors can be tracked and analyzed unobtrusively, and respondents can naturally respond on their smartphone, tablet, or even console gaming system. Leading practitioners in the field working for CNN, Microsoft, and Twitter show how the approach is being innovatively used in the field. Political Communication in Real Time is a welcome addition to the growing field of interest in "big data" and continuous response research. This volume will appeal to scholars and practitioners in political science and communication studies wishing to gain new insights into the strengths and limitations of this approach. Political communication is a continuous process, so theories, applications, and cognitive models of such communication require continuous measures and methods.

This book presents state-of-the-art research in political economy dealing with the decision making process under different political institutions. It focuses on the role that states and governments have on political outcomes and on the well-being of individuals, taking into account the differences that arise across autocracies and democracies and within political regimes. The research in this book is embedded with the political economy and social choice traditions and uses the rigorous frameworks of economics, political science and social choice theory to show how institutional settings shape social choices of a group of individuals or a nation. The contributions in this volume use a variety of cutting-edge game theory and mathematical tools as well as data and simulations that coupled with statistical techniques help us gain greater insights into these issues.

This two-volume set explores the various ways social media are profoundly changing politics in America. The last decade has seen dramatic changes in the U.S. political process. The advent of social media and other new forms of expression have enabled an unprecedented number of citizens to enter the political arena by expressing their opinions about issues and candidates in ways that can influence untold numbers of voters and officials. But the vast majority of politicians have not fully grasped how social media has fundamentally changed the process of communication or adjusted to the dramatic shift in political power that is taking place. Written by experts on the intersections of politics, public opinion, and popular culture, this book examines how new media have brought political "power to the people" like never before, provided new channels through which politicians communicate and attempt to influence public opinion, and caused a game-changing shift in political power. Volume one focuses on how savvy politicians are learning to communicate in new ways via new media in order to enhance their political appeal. The second volume examines the various ways in which individuals or groups who use new/social media are affecting voters' decisions, applying pressure to elected or appointed officials, and influencing the direction of the country.