Dr. DigiPol

The dust has settled, the results are in, the losers have conceded, and the winners have extended a hand to the other side to govern for the better of the nation and not for the better of a political party. And so, it is time to add my two-cents to Colin Delany’s analysis of the role of the Internet in the 2006 election.

As I read Colin’s analysis, it struck me that the underlying thread that ties together virtually all of his observations is that the Internet is not a stand-alone campaign strategy, but rather an integral part of an overall campaign strategy that, when effective, seamlessly reinforces online and offline tactics. As David Winston, Republican pollster, once said at a forum I assembled a few years ago when working at e-advocates, there will come a time when we no longer talk about online strategies and offline strategies, but rather strategies with online and offline components. I suggest that that day has arrived, maybe not universally, but certainly noticeably.

Take for example how YouTube created sparks in both the George “Macaccawitz” Allen vs. Jim Webb and Conrad “I wasn’t asleep” Burns vs. John Tester Senate races. Both of the Republican incumbents in these races lost. And while it is beyond the pale to say their ever-so-popular YouTube videos caused their defeat, it is clear that these sparks set a fire in the offline press that burned away enough voter support from these Senators to shift the outcome in favor of their Democratic opponents. But the dynamic here is very similar to how the Blogs took down Trent Lott as Senate Majority leader. People using the Internet shined a bright light on an isolated event that ultimately was picked up by the mainstream media.

Colin also suggests that the Internet is best at connecting campaigns with supporters, compared to mass audiences. While I agree with this statement, I do not want us to underestimate the ability of the Internet to reach mass audiences. Compared to television, the Internet may not seem as effective, but that is only the case when you compare it to network TV, as opposed to cable. Like cable, but even more so, the Internet excels at micro-targeting. But unlike cable, when micro-targeting online, you are reaching people who can reach out to their own personal networks with great ease, making it more likely that micro-targeted messages online will spread to a mass audience compared to those on cable.

Efforts to use the Internet as a mass communications tool, in the sense that TV networks are mass communications tools, have produced effective persuasion campaigns. The problem is that not enough research has been conducted in the area of politics to establish this. But studies in the retail sector reveal just such an effect. The confusing factor in these assessments is how we measure the success of online advertising. Because click through and action response rates are more easily measured than the residual persuasiveness of people seeing online ads, we have developed a stronger belief in the ability to use the Internet to educate, recruit, and mobilize supporters than we have in its ability to persuade masses of voters to vote one way or the other.

But studies in the retail sector, where users who are served ads get a cookie placed on their machine that can identify them if they come to buy the product a week or two after seeing the ad, provide a glimpse into how effective online ads can be in planting ideas in people heads that shape future behavior. As Michael Bassik (MSHCDirect and the man behind John Kerry’s 2004 online ad campaign) said at one of my Internet Advocacy Roundtables last year, in the early days of TV, no one could prove that TV ads were persuasive, but in retrospect we know they were.

Regarding Colin’s analysis of email, I agree that it remains the killer app. But again, I do not think we should downplay the potential of social networks, including blog communities, as a campaign tool. Aside from blog communities, social networks are still in their infancy as a campaign tool (blogs are clearly in their adolescence). I think the limits we faced in using social networks in 2006 is a function of the strategic context within these online communities (see my earlier post on strategic online communities). As social networks develop with a more strategic focus, we will see their value rise in both political and issue campaigns.

Regarding online fundraising, I think the question of whether online fundraising replaces offline fundraising misses the point. From what I see, online fundraising is developing into the best way to engage small donors, those who give $25-$50 at a time. These people are often in a position to give several times a year and split their donations up between multiple recipients. By comparison, offline fundraising is better suited for larger and major donors, who’s giving is often a zero-sum game—they must choose between giving to one cause or another for the year. Further, online fundraising efforts that tap into friend-to-friend solicitation strategies are much more likely to succeed than organization-to-member/prospect solicitations.

Finally, the explosion of political information online is, indeed, a major change. While the Internet may still rank unrealistically low in public perceptions of credibility (15%), the opportunity to easily find information on candidates and issues from the candidates, the parties, the media, and private citizens, for me, ranks up there with a Bacchanalian orgy. And given the higher than expected turnout in this and the last election, I think I am not alone.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 10th, 2006 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Digital Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.