Hypermedia Tech in Political Campaigns: Efficient & Controlled Communication - Prof. John , Papers of Theories of Communication

Download Hypermedia Tech in Political Campaigns: Efficient & Controlled Communication - Prof. John and more Papers Theories of Communication in PDF only on Docsity! Why Choose Hypermedia? Electoral Campaigns and the Desire for New Technology Erin Janulis SPCM 529 5/9/07 Final Paper “-- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Abraham Lincoln The Gettysburg Address 1863 Introduction Democracy, it is a concept that we as Americans are taught to hold up as the greatest and most logical form of government. Yet in high school civics classes our teachers go to great lengths to explain to us all that the form of government we practice in the United States is not in fact a democracy (at least not a direct democracy), but more closely resembles the text book definition of a republic. Still it is democracy that is touted in the rhetoric of politicians and is infused into our collective consciousness as Americans. It is this preoccupation with the ideal of democracy that drives many to concern themselves with the ways in which we select our political leaders. After all the legitimacy of our representatives depends on the legitimacy of the system that brought them into office. Over the course of the last 50 years there have been a number of pushes for greater transparency in the electoral system. From transferring control of the nomination process from political parties to the electorate, to the freedom of information act, the path has been paved to make way for an increasingly transparent government in the US. The goal, the ever unobtainable, although highly desirable, quest for a more democratic state. Many see the internet as the latest tool in this path to a more responsive deliberative democracy. The internet offers the possibility for individual citizens to communicate their wishes almost instantaneously to political leaders (or at the very least staffers for our political leaders). As a result of this focus many campaigns have Janulis 2 the common belief that the use of hypermedia technologies is beneficial to our democratic institutions. These goals in addition to the structural organization and history of these two types of organizations create very different contexts for the motivation to utilize particular technologies. Because of these divergent structures and goals it is important for this analysis that the distinction between these two groups remains clear. In order to perform this analysis I will utilize a variety of sources including both academic and professional accounts of electoral campaign strategy and history. Overall, it is my goal to explain how three specific features of electoral campaign encourage the use of hypermedia technology as a more time effective and controlled way of communicating to the public: (1) the resiliency of direct voter contact as the goal of electoral campaigns, (2) the demands created by the campaign organizations themselves, and (3) the structural constraints of the constitutional established election system, specifically, the electoral college system in presidential elections, which provides incentives for building strategic majorities in specific states. Through identifying and investigating these three issues I hope to come to a greater understanding of why campaigns find these hypermedia consultants so enticing and also to provide a few suggestions as for how to conceptualize further analysis of why campaigns and campaign managers act in the way that they do. Retail Politics and Voter Contact Those of us, who grew up around Chicago with an interest in politics, were likely to have heard more than a few stories about the way that Mayor Richard J. Daly and his party bosses ruled the city with an iron fist. A scene from the movie Thirteen Days, albeit a fictionalized Janulis 5 account, captures the way in which even political elites understood the power of political bosses like Daly. A scene set at the start of the Cuban missile crises depicts President Kennedy and key advisors Kenny O’Donnell and Attorney General Robert Kennedy debating over who should have to call Daly to cancel an appearance, a phone calls none of the individuals are looking forward to. The ultimate decision, no one calls Daly, and the trip to Chicago goes on as planned. While this Hollywood version of history may sound a little over dramatic it does capture the power which political party bosses once held as recent as 1962. Throughout their history political parties in the United States have not always had the best reputation. At the turn of the 20th century they were seen by progressives as a parasite on our political system. Political parties maintained their power in many ways from offering political patronage jobs to supporters to also providing basic community services, always with the understanding that your support would be expected at the polls. Even as the parties were declining throughout the beginning of the century local political organizations remained active and resilient until the late 1960’s when the McGovern Frazier reforms of the nominating system in the 1970’s dramatically limited party power in the electoral process. As Larry Sabato explains “one by one parties lost their most important jobs: dispenser of patronage, provider of services, supervisors of elections and suppliers of ballots, prime centers for entertainment and social activities” (285). As parties began to fade a power void was left and a number of possible contenders to fill these various roles. In his book Out of Order (1993) Thomas Patterson argues that during the nomination process that the press has taken over responsibilities for screening candidates which was formerly held by political bosses and party loyalists (30), but this was not the role which has been neglected with the decline of political parties in the electorate. One of the key roles which Janulis 6 party activists typically assumed was local advocate for the party’s candidates during general elections. As parties have lost their strength over selection of candidates campaigns have also become more and more candidate centered. These candidate centered campaigns require separate organizations and infrastructures for each individual running and tend to split the pool of activist among multiple campaigns. While political parties are still a strong indicator of voter candidate choice, their diminished capacity has limited the parties’ role in organizing and directing electoral activities. One of the key functions that party activists performed was voter out reach. Especially in city and suburban areas local precinct committeemen would go door to door advocating on behalf of the parties entire slate rather than just for individual candidates. In fact the candidates themselves played a much more limited role in campaigning than they do today. On some level this kind of campaigning seems antiquated and old fashioned, but it seems to be a resilient component of campaign activities. Furthermore there also there seems to remain a sense of romanticism in politics with all things grassroots. One need only look to the heavy emphasis on the early primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire. These states are seen as an early indicator of the campaigns ability to both fundraise and also organize a field staff. Campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire focuses on old fashioned retail politics, with individual people getting the change too interact with presidential hopefuls. While there are a number of additional reasons why Iowa and New Hampshire are significant to the nomination process, these events where political figures interact with common citizens seem to capture the ideals of representative democracy. While this kind of direct contact may not be practical in a nationwide campaign, or even in more populous states, it has ensured that campaigns are still concerned with relating Janulis 7 Campaign Structure When Hollywood makes movies about political campaigns like Primary Colors or even Head of State, we usually see the top brass of the campaign: The campaign manager crafting the message of the day, the press secretary spinning the news, at most a personal aide to the candidate sharing a moment with the candidate. What we rarely see are the more common activities of campaign workers: fundraisers making phone calls to ask for money, communication staff typing up press releases, or an office manager organizing the stuffing and mailing of over 2000 envelopes in one day. And yet it is the combination of all these tasks, not just the prestigious ones that influence the effectiveness of a campaigns ability to convey a consistent message. With the variety of tasks involve in campaigns in mind, it is important to examine another contributing factor to the increased demand for hypermedia consultants and their products, the structure of the campaigns themselves. One of the biggest constraints campaign mangers are asked to deal with is a limited amount of time. One of the most consistent trends in campaigns is that there is always more to do than there is time to do. In a number of ways campaign managers share a number of traits with their corporate counterparts CEO’s. They are always juggling a series of commitments, and are continuously saddled with the responsibility of handling a very intense schedule. Within these time constraints campaigns are required to develop extensive infrastructures and organizations, similar to that of a corporation frequently without nearly as much money, with the clock ticking, and the world watching. One former political consultant from the days before consulting was as common place as it is today identified seven key features to look for in a campaign manager Janulis 10 1. Basic intelligence. 2. Understanding of media. 3. Ability to make decisions. 4. Complete loyalty to the candidate. 5. Complete Trust of the candidate. 6. A good administrator. 7. Available full time. If he also happens to know something about politics, that is helpful, but I wouldn’t sacrifice any of my seven qualifications for that one (Napolitan 158). As Napolitan points out political knowledge frequently comes second to the manager’s ability to construct an effective organization, but, this is where the element of time comes in to play again. Unlike an actual corporation where individual projects are placed on timelines, while the institution remains intact for an extended period of time, political campaigns rarely last for longer than a year. All of this organization must occur in high pressure time limited situation, for this reason campaign managers are constantly searching for more effective ways of performing the various functions of the campaign. This was one of the greatest features of mass media campaigns. They were able to reach a large number of people simultaneously. Through paid advertising campaigns were able to have a great deal of control over the campaign message, however, campaigns still had the problem of dealing with television and radio news coverage of the campaign. Furthermore even the outlet they could control, paid advertisements did not allow for very much specialization. Daniel Shea and Michael Burton suggest we examine the demand for more efficient yet personalized campaigns in comparison to the rise of mass customization. Janulis 11 ‘Economies of Scale’ could reduce a product’s cost-per-unit by increasing a factory’s quantity of output […] The downside of mass production was it’s lack of flexibility […] But as consumers began to insist on a wider variety of good, the old ‘stability and control’ model began to fall away as the new marketplace demanded a ‘better understanding of customer requirements’ (201). It was these kinds of pressures that encouraged many candidates in the early 1990’s to turn to less conventional forms of media exposure. According to Doris Graber, “Politicians and media audiences like talk shows because most hosts, unlike peevish Washington reporters, allow their guests to present their arguments in their own words and from their own perspectives” (34). This identifies one of complaints that campaigns have with mass media. Candidates and their campaign managers are always searching for more direct channels of communication with voters. In the 1992 election this was seen by the increase of political candidate appearances on shows like Larry King Live which have a viewer call in format, so that candidates were actually answering questions put forth by voters. Clinton staffer, Dee Dee Myers, explains early efforts at targeting specific target areas with more customized messages. According to Myers during Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign strategists targeted media markets in 18 specific states through “satellite likes, faxes and radio feeds” in an effort to ”serve interested markets by highlighting specialized issues” (182). What hypermedia campaigns are able to do is to get even more specific and target individual voters with information that they seek out and also that data suggests they might be interested in knowing about. While the candidate may not be writing these personalized messages they are unfiltered in the sense that they are able to come directly from the campaign to the voter. This type of voter contact, which was described in detail previously, takes up less Janulis 12 chairman and all operations, to ensure that the strategy is implemented” (Agranoff 195). This individual is responsible for both the big picture concepts of the campaign and also ensuring that the day to day responsibilities are getting handled. Three decades ago it was not unusual to see a campaign managed by the candidate’s closest friend, now it is more likely to be a well versed political professional. As the field of campaign managers becomes more professionalized campaign wins become all the more significant. Much in the same way that wins for hypermedia consulting firms boost their visibility (Howard 79). In the political world often out of touch with academia often times the simplest explanation for causation is used. If hypermedia campaigns were employed for the first time, then hypermedia campaigns helped win the election. In reality a number of different factors may be contributing to any given win, but politics is often a game of perceptions. For campaign managers it may be important to offer something new to candidates and the chance to have experience with this new wave of campaign tools may be too lucrative to resist. In the same way that consultants are challenged to think creatively about new ways to utilize technology in electoral campaigns, so are campaign managers driven to incorporate them into their repertoire. Electoral Structure One of the many tales told to individuals interested in campaign management comes from the 1960 campaign election cycle. In 1960 then Vice President Richard Nixon made a campaign promise to visit every state in the union during the course of the campaign. As the extremely tight campaign was coming to a close Nixon ended up spending vital time in “electorally insignificant parts of the country,” including Alaska, in an effort to keep his promise. Nixon Janulis 15 ended up being defeated by a “razor-thin margin” (Shea 75). Whether or not this decision was what ultimately cost him the election is uncertain, but the lesson campaign enthusiasts have taken from this tale is that in elections sometimes practicality trumps ideology. While it may sound like a good idea for the candidate to go every where and meet everyone our electoral process is not always designed to work with this goal. One final factor which encourages the use of hypermedia technologies in presidential campaigns may be the Electoral College system. In our current system winning is actually based on the formation of strategic majorities within targeted states. With 538 electors only 270 are needed to win the presidency. Furthermore in each individual state only a simple majority is needed to take all of the states electoral votes. This is how the phenomenon of swing states has developed. With simple polling it is easy for campaigns to identify which states are more or less likely to go to one candidate or the other. Campaigns are able to conserve resources by emphasizing only those states where they the outcome could possibly be in their favor. By ruling out states which a solid majority of voters have already made up their mind about a specific candidate, it allows candidates to focus on providing information and access to those states where the outcome is still very uncertain. Even within these targeted states the most competitive areas may be decided by less than one percentage of the population. With an election this close campaigns have even higher demands to produce information which is highly customized. This type of information makes “transmission more effective than when depersonalized news is directed to heterogeneous mass audiences.” (Graber 33). If our goal is to truly send a specific message to soccer moms, who have voted for both democrats and republicans in the past, then we may want to be more specific than finding an area where there are a significant amount of soccer moms in population and Janulis 16 broadcasting advertising that appeals to them. Instead through data mining and targeting we can send one carefully crafted message to soccer moms without as much concern over how the message will be perceived by college students in the same area with drastically different concerns. This limitation of the mass media is one of the key problems that have prompted many hypermedia consultants to develop these kinds of data bases. One of the key benefits touted by consultants is that there is low information waste (Howard 156). These new developments are the equivalent of using a fine razor to shave off the necessary constituents rather than a dull knife. Even outside of issue messages this fine tuned strategy has the potential a great influence on campaign outcomes. One of the tasks which campaigns focus on intensely during the last phase of the campaign is Get Out the Vote or GOTV efforts. While previous efforts may be focused on identifying who you think will vote for your GOTV is all about energizing and activating voters you know are going to vote for you (Shaw 137). One of the consistent problems with broad appeals to get out and vote is that they may encourage your opponent’s supporters to come out as well. With more elaborate database information and automated e-mail and phone capabilities campaigns would be able to be more discerning on whom they are encouraging to vote. This may sounds like a trivial amount of concern but voter turnout in relevant districts can mean the difference between winning and loosing a state and all of its electoral votes. Just as wining the presidency relies on the development of a significant coalition of state electoral votes, within each states coalitions must be formed. Through the use of hypermedia technology Howard explains “instead of voters choosing to support a candidate or campaign, now candidates and campaigns choose voters” (168). The complex list of factors compiled by hypermedia consulting firms allows for highly specific criteria in order to create these coalitions. Janulis 17 political candidates and activists groups in the same way that campaign finance issues were during the 2000 election this could place a lot of heat on the practice of data mining specifically. The overall effectiveness and resiliency of these techniques are yet to be determined, but in order to establish whether they are effective or not it is essential to first understand why they are being demanded in the first place. While some of these issues may only be possibilities at the moment they are important issues to keep in mind when considering both the current and future paths of the use of hypermedia technologies in the electoral process. Janulis 20 Works Cited Agranoff, Robert. The Management of Election Campaigns. Boston: Holbrook Press, Inc., 1978. Graber, Doris A. "The 'New' Media and Politics: What does the Future Hold?" PS: Political Science and Politics 29.1 (1996): 33-6. Howard, Philip N. New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Iyengar, Shanto, and Simon Jackman. “Can Information Technology Energize Voters? Experimental Evidence from the 2000 and 2002 Campaigns.” Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. Philadelphia, 2003. Johnson-Cartee, Karen S., and Gary A. Copeland. Inside Political Campaigns: Theory and Practice. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1997. McCombs, Maxwell, and Donald Shaw. “The agenda-setting function of mass media.” Public Opinion Quarterly, 36. (1972), 176-185. Myers, Dee Dee. "New Technology and the 1992 Clinton Presidential Campaign." New Technology and the 1992 Clinton Presidential Campaign 37.2 (1993): 181-4. Napolitan, Joseph. The Election Game and how to Win it. Garden City: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1972. Patterson, Thomas E. Out of Order. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. Powell, Larry, and Joseph Coward. Political Campaign Communication: Inside and Out. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2003. Sabato, Larry J. The Rise of Political Consultants: New Ways of Winning Elections. New York: Basic Books Inc., 1981b. Shaw, Catherine. The Campaign Manager. Second ed. Boulder: Westview Press, 2000. Shea, Daniel M., and Michael John Burton. Campaign Craft: The Strategies, Tactics, and Art of Political Campaign Management. Westport: Praeger, 2001. Trippi, Joe. The Revolution Will Not be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything. New York: ReganBooks, 2004. Janulis 21