Overview

The use of the Web in U.S. political campaigns has developed dramatically over the course of the last several election seasons. In Web Campaigning, Kirsten Foot and Steven Schneider examine the evolution of campaigns' Web practices, based on hundreds of campaign Web sites produced by a range of political actors during the U.S. elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004. Their developmental analyses of how and why campaign organizations create specific online structures illuminates the reciprocal relationship between these production practices and the structures of both the campaign organization and the electoral arena. This practice-based approach and the focus on campaigns as Web producers make the book a significant methodological and theoretical contribution to both science and technology studies and political communication scholarship. Foot and Schneider explore the inherent tension between the desire of campaigns to maintain control over messages and resources and the generally decentralizing dynamic of Web-based communication. They analyze specific strategies by which campaigns mitigate this, examining the ways that the production techniques, coproducing Web content, online-offline convergence, and linking to other Web sites mediate the practices of informing, involving, connecting, and mobilizing supporters. Their conclusions about the past decade's trajectory of Web campaigning point the way to a political theory of technology and a technologically grounded theory of electoral politics. A digital installation available on the web illustrates core concepts discussed in the text of the book with examples drawn from archived campaign Web sites. Users have the opportunity to search these concepts in the context of fully operational campaign sites, recreating the Web experience of users during the election periods covered in the book.

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9780262062589

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Reviews

A sophisticated, systematic analysis of campaign Web sites as practices, drawing on theoretical perspectives from political communication, structuration theory, and the social shaping of technology. Foot and Schneider bring together a wealth of data to provide the best available portrait of changing campaign Web practice over time, and the result should be of interest to anyone seeking an understanding of the Internet's influence on politics. --Bruce Bimber, Departments of Political Science and Communication, and Center for Information Technology and Society, University of California, Santa Barbara Foot and Schneider's meticulous interrogation of Web artifacts provides valuable insights into the character of electoral campaigns on the Internet. It will be of interest to scholars and practitioners alike. --Pablo J. Boczkowski, Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University and author of Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers This is the most comprehensive and authoritative work to date on the Internet's impact on U.S. politics. If you want to really understand what's happening in the online political revolution, read this book. --Phil Noble, Founder, PoliticsOnline

Author Information

Kirsten A. Foot is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, and lead author of Web Campaigning (MIT Press). Steven M. Schneider is Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at SUNY Institute of Technology. Bonnie A. Nardi is Professor of Informatics in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, and Cofounder of Center for Research in Sustainability, Collapse-preparedness, and Information Technology there. She is the coauthor of Acting with Technology (MIT Press). Victor Kaptelinin is Professor in the Department of Informatics at Umeå University, Sweden, and Professor in the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway. He is coeditor of Beyond the Desktop Metaphor: Designing Integrated Digital Work Environments (MIT Press, 2007). Kirsten A. Foot is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, and lead author of Web Campaigning (MIT Press).

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