The New York Times’ Adam Nagourney has this excellent overview of how the Internet is changing election politics, particularly for Democrats. Email, web sites, blogs, podcasting and text messaging are brand new tools that the til-now stodgy political establishment are embracing with rapidity, diminishing the importance of the all-powerful political TV advertising campaigns.
Bloggers play a particular role in this transformation — Democrat Mark Warner kicked off his presidential campaign effort by hiring a top blogging expert Jerome Armstrong.
What the parties and the candidates are undergoing now is in many ways similar to what has happened in other sectors of the nation — including the music industry, newspapers and retailing — as they try to adjust to, and take advantage of, the Internet as its influence spreads across American society. To a considerable extent, they are responding to, and playing catch up with, bloggers who have demonstrated the power of their forums to harness the energy on both sides of the ideological divide.
As the piece points out, the Internet is used for good and bad by both political parties. Not only is the web used to disseminate information, rally voters and gain backers, it is also a prime medium for engaging in negative campaigning, with web sites set up to attack opponents and “decoy” sites established to distribute damaging information.
Cynthia Brumfield at 12:09 PM|Comments(0)
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