The Public Participation in Political Campaign

1
The Public Participation in Political Campaign

• Byung Kyu Kang
• Evolution and Trends of
• the Communication Technologies
• Dec. 6, 2004

2
Overview

• Introduction
• Political Participation
• What is it?
• Communication Theory
• Previous Participation based on Social Structure
• Initial Motivations for Public Participation
• Offline Vs. Online
• Background
• Comparison
• Social Effect of Online Participation
• Anticipation the Future
• Conclusion

3
What is Political Participation?

• Definition
• In the research, Voice and equality Civic
  Volunteerism in American Politics, Verba, S.,
  Schlozman, K.L, Brady H.E.(1995) said,
• political participation is an activity that
  has the intent of effect of influencing
  government action either directly by affecting
  the making or implementation of public policy or
  indirectly by influencing the selection of people
  who make those policies.

4
Communication Theory

• Balance Theory -gt change the attitude

5
Previous Participation based on Social Structure

• Initial Motivations
• The Effect of Church
• Central intermediary between the public and the
  state
• The heart of many voluntary organizations
• Strong religious belief and regular social
  interactions,
• Provide political training ground
• Interpersonal and Mass Communication
• Political contents of consumed television and
  newspapers
• -gt increase of political participation
• Increased interests in usage of various mass
  media have resulted in a rise of interpersonal
  discussion about political issues.

6
Offline Public Participation

• Conventional (offline) Forms of Public
  Participation
• 1. Sign a petition
• 2. Attend a public meeting
• 3. Write to an elected government
• representative
• 4. Attend a rally or speech
• 5. Serve on a local organization
• committee
• 6. Serve as a club or organization
• officer
• 7. Work for a political party
• 8. Write a letter to a newspaper
• 9. Give a speech
• 10. Be a member of a group
• 11. Write an article for a magazine
• or newspaper
• 12. Hold or run for a political office

7
Online Public Participation

• Background (1/2)
• Limitation of conventional participation methods
• require free time, money, and organizational
  (communication) skills
• Given equal motivation -gt not equal opportunities
  to participate in political campaign in reality
• Popularization of the Internet use

8
Online Public Participation

• Background (2/2)
• Popularization of the Internet use
• 68.8(201,661,159 ) of U.S. population(293,271,500
  ) as of July/04
• Growth rate of Internet usage from 2000 to 2004
  -gt 111.5
• 88 of online American - the Internet plays an
  important role in their daily routines
• 64 - their activities would be affected without
  it
• 92 - a good place to go for getting everyday
  information
• 85 - a good way to communicate or interact with
  others

9
Offline Vs. Online

• What online citizens did in 2002 election on the
  Web
• 1. Seek information about candidate record
• 2. information about candidate voting records
• 3. register opinions in online polls
• 4. information about where to vote
• 5. participate in online discussions about
  elections
• 6. contribute to candidates
• 7. send or receive campaign-related email

10
Offline Vs. Online

• 64 used email during the 2002 campaign
• 1. used email to send receive jokes
• about the campaign
• 2. received email relation to campaign
  endorsement
• or opposition
• 3. sent email related to their political
  preferences
• 4. signed up for political e-newsletters
• 5. got or sent email relating to
• get-out-the-vote efforts

11
Offline Vs. Online (of the Internet population)
12
Social Effect of Online

• Motivate the minorities,
• women, young generation, less educated, or
  ethnic groups,
• to participate in political campaign more
  actively
• Blogs
• Easy to create, cheap to set up, and commonplace
  on the web
• Turn voters into active participants than passive
  consumers
• Focus attention on ignored issues by traditional
  media.
• In 2000, independent and home-grown weblogs
  about 6,700.

13
An example of Blogs www.votergasm.org
14
Mobilizing the action (in March, 2004)

15
Conclusion (Future)

• Drawbacks of Online participation
• Disinformation, misinformation, slander, etc
• Strict regulation needed
• Digital Divide still affects Poor,
  Less-Educated
• 67 of white use the Internet, 43 of black use
  it.
• 44(Less than 30,000), 69(30,50,),
  81(50,75,), 89(over75,)
• 32(Less than high school), 52(high school),
  75(some college), 88(college)
• Internet use and voter turnout -gt less connected
• ? Offline and Online participation will still
  coexist.