Reading response to the chapter on Innovation, Infrastructure, and Organization in New Media Campaigning in Taking Our Country Back.
Obama's speech on February 10, 2007 echoed the message of Howard Dean's announcement speech from June 2003. (I vaguely remember this happening because I was 11 years old at the time.)
Dean's campaign is responsible for starting the first full-fledged online political campaign in the United States and set the standard for Obama's successful campaign to get into the White House.
Blue State Digital (BSD) was key to rebuilding the technical infrastructure of the Democratic party after Kerry lost. Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Clay Johnson, Joe Rospars, and Ben Self launched the company after having worked on the Dean campaign. BSD built themselves as a provider of tools and strategies for online campaigning.
Web 2.0 has allowed campaigns to lower costs while increasing campaign donations via ease in dissemination of political information at a lower cost than traditional media.
Three themes that are largely absent from accounts of new media and politics: innovation, infrastructure, and organization.
Legality of much of the Dean campaign was always in question as there was no Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruling on it at the time, prompting many meetings with the campaign's lawyers on the legality of certain campaign choices.
Through "structured interactivity", Dean's online applications allowed his supporters to contribute in some ways, such as campaign contributions, while not allowing others, such as certain choices of the campaign.
No comments:
Post a Comment