P1: GDZ 0521847494pre CUNY143B/Howard 0 521 84749 4 January 27, 2006 8:41 This page intentionally left blank i P1: GDZ 0521847494pre CUNY143B/Howard 0 521 84749 4 January 27, 2006 8:41 NewMedia Campaigns and the Managed Citizen The political campaign is one of the most important organizations in a democracy, and whether issue- or candidate-specific, it is one of the least understood organizations in contemporary political life. This book is a critical assessment of the role that information technologies have come to play in contemporary campaigns. With evidence from ethnographic immersion, survey data, and social network analysis, Philip Howard examines the evolving act of political campaigning and the changing organization of political campaigns over the last five election cycles, from 1996to2004.Overthistime,bothgrassrootsandelitepoliticalcampaigns have gone online, built multimedia strategies, and constructed complex relational databases. The contemporary political campaign adopts digital technologies that improve reach and fund-raising and at the same time adapts its organizational behavior. The new system of producing political culture has immense implications for the meaning of citizenship and the basis of representation. Philip N. Howard is an assistant professor in the Communications Department at the University of Washington. He has published a co- edited collection entitled Society Online: The Internet in Context (2003) as well as articles in NewMedia & Society, American Behavioral Scientist, and the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Howard has been a Fellow at the Pew Internet and American Life Project in Washington, D.C., and the Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research in London. i P1: GDZ 0521847494pre CUNY143B/Howard 0 521 84749 4 January 27, 2006 8:41 ii P1: GDZ 0521847494pre CUNY143B/Howard 0 521 84749 4 January 27, 2006 8:41 COMMUNICATION, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS Editors W. Lance Bennett, University of Washington Robert M. Entman, North Carolina State University Editorial Advisory Board Larry M. Bartels, Princeton University JayG.Blumler, Emeritus, University of Leeds Daniel Dayan, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris Doris A.Graber,University of Illinois at Chicago Paolo Mancini, Universit`adiPerugia Pippa Norris, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Barbara Pfetsch, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin f¨ur Sozialforschung Philip Schlesinger, University of Stirling Gadi Wolfsfeld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Politics and relations among individuals in societies across the world are being transformed by new technologies for targeting individuals and sophisticated methods for shaping personalized messages. The new technologies challenge boundaries of many kinds – among news, information, entertainment, and advertising; among media, with the arrival of the World Wide Web; and even among nations. Communication, Society, and Politics probes the political and social impacts of these new communication systems in national, comparative, and global perspective. Titles in the series: C. Edwin Baker, Media, Markets, and Democracy W. Lance Bennett and Robert M. Entman, eds., Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of Democracy Bruce Bimber, Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of Political Power Murray Edelman, The Politics of Misinformation Frank Esser and Barbara Pfetsch, eds., Comparing Political Communication: Theories, Cases, and Challenges (continued on page following index) iii P1: GDZ 0521847494pre CUNY143B/Howard 0 521 84749 4 January 27, 2006 8:41 For Gina Neff, my nectar iv P1: GDZ 0521847494pre CUNY143B/Howard 0 521 84749 4 January 27, 2006 8:41 NewMedia Campaigns and the Managed Citizen Philip N. Howard University of Washington v Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge ,UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridg e.org /9780521847490 © Philip N. Howard 2006 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format - ---- eBook (EBL) - --- eBook (EBL) - ---- hardback - --- hardback - ---- paperback - --- paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of s for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. P1: GDZ 0521847494pre CUNY143B/Howard 0 521 84749 4 January 27, 2006 8:41 Contents List of Tables and Figures page ix Acknowledgments xi Prologue: The Flows of Information in Competitive Politics xvi Introduction: The Hypermedia Campaign1 The Evolution of Hypermedia Campaigns in the United States 5 Information Technology in Campaigns and Elections 18 Outline of the Book 29 1Political Communication and Information Technology 33 Politics in Code 34 Digital Democracy in Theory and Practice 36 Political Consultants as a Cultural Industry 43 The Structural Code of Political Communication 54 Analytical Frames for Studying Politics and Information Technology 60 Information Technologies as Cultural Schema 69 2Producing the Hypermedia Campaign 73 The Digital Leviathan 75 Hypermedia and the Production of Public Opinion 91 Of Grassroots and Astroturf 98 3Learning Politics from the Hypermedia Campaign 101 Software and Surveillance 104 Political Communication and the Open Information Market 125 Political Redlining and Issue Publics 131 vii P1: GDZ 0521847494pre CUNY143B/Howard 0 521 84749 4 January 27, 2006 8:41 Contents 4 Organizational Communication in the Hypermedia Campaign 143 The Development of Campaign Organization 145 Power and Social Control in the Hypermedia Campaign 168 5Managed Citizenship and Information Technology 170 The Wizards of Odds 171 Deviance and Decisions 176 Citizenship in the Digital Democracy 182 Political Schema Rationalized in Code 191 Policy and Process for the Healthy Digital Democracy 198 Appendix: Method Notes on Studying Information Technology and Political Communication 205 Methodological Challenges in Studying Hypermedia Organizations 208 Conclusion 235 Glossary 239 References 245 Index 261 viii P1: GDZ 0521847494pre CUNY143B/Howard 0 521 84749 4 January 27, 2006 8:41 Tables and Figures TABLES I.1A Comparative Media Use, 1996–2004, Percentage page 20 I.1B Information about Politics and Campaigns Online, 1996–2004, Percentage 22 I.1C Civic Engagement, 1996–2004, Percentage 23 I.2A Candidates with Campaign Web Sites, U.S. Senate Races, 1996–2004, Percentage 26 I.2B Candidates with Campaign Web Sites, U.S. House Races, 1996–2004, Percentage 27 I.2C Candidates with Campaign Web Sites, Gubernatorial Races, 1996–2004, Percentage 28 3.1 Public Opinion Research in Mass Media Campaigns 107 3.2 Public Opinion Research in Hypermedia Campaigns 115 4.1A Information in the Mass Media and Hypermedia Campaign 158 4.1B Organization in the Mass Media and Hypermedia Campaign 159 A.1 Network Ethnography Sampling: Conferences, Organizations, and Projects, 1996–2004 229 FIGURES 2.1 Astroturf-Lobby.org Algorithm for Producing a Political Campaign 91 4.1 Presidential Campaign Budgets per Voter, Registered Voter, and Voting Age Population, 1960–2004 146 A.1 Panel Participation at e-Politics Conferences, by Organizational Subgroups, 1995–2000 225 ix P1: GDZ 0521847494pre CUNY143B/Howard 0 521 84749 4 January 27, 2006 8:41 x P1: GDZ 0521847494pre CUNY143B/Howard 0 521 84749 4 January 27, 2006 8:41 Acknowledgments In the summer of 2003 I was invited to be a Research Fellow at the Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research in London, and Iworked in an office that looked onto the Speaker’s Corner of Hyde Park.Speaker’s Corner is one of the oldest living institutions for free speech, an institution used at different times by Marcus Garvey, George Orwell, Vladimir Lenin, and Karl Marx. One of the other academics in residence at Stanhope was Christian Sandvig, and he decided it would be worthwhile to try to bring a wireless internet connection, coined Wi-Fi, to Speaker’s Corner. In contrast with the oldest institution of free speech, Wi-Fi is one of the newest technologies for free speech, used by political activists and digerati and espoused as a politically liberating technology. Both the institution of Speaker’s Corner and the technology of Wi-Fi support wireless communication. ButSandvig had problems bringing Wi-Fi to Speaker’s Corner. The equipment had to be ordered online and shipped from overseas, and the United Kingdom had very strict regulations about what kind of power and reach his equipment could have. The equipment was difficult to assemble, and eventually the antenna had to be perched atop telephone books and a series of poles held together with duct tape. Could today’s free speech technology be for anyone other than a devoted hobbyist? Dr. Sandvig had a program on his laptop that would reveal Wi-Fi field strength by making the sounds of someone banging on a piano keyboard with their elbows. The stronger the Wi-Fi signal, the higher the pitch of the piano sounds. He had hoped to be able to project the field as far as the sausage stand in Hyde Park, so that the customers could eat and use the internet. Ideally, the proprietors were to