Taking our country back? : political consultants and the crafting of networked politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- While many scholars argue that the falling cost of producing and disseminating digital information drives new forms of collective political action, this dissertation reveals how digital tools, practices, and cultural processes together shape electoral campaigning. In the process, this research shows that digital technologies are not the primary drivers of changes in political practice and networked politics is not as radically democratic as many scholars suggest. Through open-ended interviews, archival research, and participant observation this work shows how until the 2003-2004 presidential election political consultants used the Internet as mass medium. During the Howard Dean campaign, however, consultants deployed a set of Internet applications that enabled citizens to work together on tasks such as voter mobilization and fundraising. As these new media staffers drew from their corporate experience to build these tools they described the campaign as a technologically-empowered, 1960s-style social movement. The dissertation concludes by showing how after the campaign these staffers founded political consultancies and brought these tools, techniques, and claims to many other sites in electoral politics, including Barack Obama's bid for the presidency. While telling this history, this dissertation shows how social formations and cultural work together shape the uptake of tools in electoral campaigning. Meanwhile, in contrast to many accounts of democratizing 'Web 2.0' technologies, this dissertation reveals that digital media vastly extend the power of campaign consultants to motivate, channel, and control electoral work.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2010 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Kreiss, Daniel Ryan |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Communication. |
| Primary advisor | Turner, Fred |
| Thesis advisor | Turner, Fred |
| Thesis advisor | Fishkin, James S |
| Thesis advisor | Nass, Clifford Ivar |
| Thesis advisor | Powell, Walter W |
| Advisor | Fishkin, James S |
| Advisor | Nass, Clifford Ivar |
| Advisor | Powell, Walter W |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Daniel Kreiss. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Communication. |
| Thesis | Ph. D. Stanford University 2010 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2010 by Daniel Ryan Kreiss
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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