The Influence of New Media on United States Presidential Election Campaigns in the years 2000-2024 2700-ERASMUS-IMUSA
Nowadays the process of shaping the public political awareness is has been slowly moving away from the state and media institutions towards the online communication, that is, to the Internet understood as a public information platform and not one of the so far classically functioning media. The goal of the lecture entitled “The influence of the new media on the American presidential campaigns in the years 2000 – 2016” is conducting an analysis of the American presidential campaigns from that time in the context of the role played in them by the modern means of interactive communication, especially the Internet. The research presented during the lecture demonstrate that thanks to the new communication technologies, mainly the Internet, the election campaigns gain a new structural – organizational dimension and additional social drive.
The lecture assumed a time frame covering the period of time from the year 2000 to the year 2016. The description of the beginning of the development of the Internet in the twentieth century was intentionally omitted. The early stage of the Internet development, that is the eighties and the nineties of the twentieth century, which was tainted by the rivalry for the influence zones on the Internet between the companies Netscape and Microsoft did not result in any solutions for the political system in the United States that would be meaningful for the running of an electoral campaign in the USA. The start of the new millennium coincided with the stage of the Internet development that made it possible for the staff offices to use the new communication tool in an interactive way, therefore the year 2000 and the presidential campaign of the Republican candidate for president John McCain were assumed as the starting point for the lecture.
During the course of the lecture, with the help of multimedia presentations, the students will become acquainted with specifications of results of international research describing the fragmentary elements of the American presidential campaigns from the years 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012. The research includes, among others: comparative studies of the usefulness and functionality of the official websites of individual candidates from the campaign of the year 2008 or a comparison of solutions within the area of IT technologies in the campaign of the year 2012, as well as the analyses regarding, among others: online fundraising, e-mailing, telephone databases, social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube), the Internet advertisements of the search and display types, databases and micro – targeting.
In the course of the classes the students will also be given the opportunity to acquire the knowledge concerning the political and legal system in the United States of America, where the presidential campaign is being conducted, as well as within the media system where the so-called traditional media function. The traditional media had so far determined the communication standards in an election campaign.
The objective of the lecture is to try and establish what influence the modern communication technologies had on the shape of the presidential campaigns in the United States and which of the analyzed Internet tools and communication techniques were used extensively by the staff offices and which were used effectively. The question will also be if this fact influenced the efficiency parameters of the campaigns, for instance the amount of collected funds or the number of views of the official website of the candidate.
The second objective of the lecture is to attempt to answer the question whether the use of online communication coupled together with other communication techniques both by the staff offices and the supporters of the individual candidates had any influence on the final electoral result of each of the analyzed candidates.
The presidential campaign of the year 2016 shall be characterized with the means of presentations created by groups of students. Each of the two members teams has a task of preparing an analysis of the activity of one of the dozen or so candidates for the office of the president of the USA in the chosen social media and assess the potential influence of those activities on, among others: activating the undecided citizens, evoking positive emotions, acquiring volunteers and raising funds.
The lecture is given in provisioning method. It is accompanied by a multimedia presentation. The analysis of individual, quoted research presented in the form of charts and tables is supplemented with print - screens of websites, social services, television commercials as well as with the replaying of the video materials produced by the staff offices of the candidates, their individual supporters and social organizations. The lecture includes conversational elements – it is at times stopped for the exchange of opinions regarding the presented materials between the lecturer and the students.
Type of course
Mode
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Having completed the lecture the student:
- Is acquainted with the phases of the electoral cycle in the United States of America
- Is acquainted with the basis of the media system in the USA
- Is capable of describing the chronology of the appearance of consecutive Internet tools in the presidential campaigns in the USA in the years 2000 – 2016
- Is capable of independently evaluating the degree of the use of the new media in the political election campaigns (preparing a presentation)
- Is capable of defining the threats arising from the accumulation of knowledge regarding the voters gathered by the staff offices with the use of the Internet
- Has the knowledge of such notions as: political marketing, primaries, swing states, Super PACs, Super Tuesday, micro - targeting, Internet advertisements of the display/search type, fundraising, databases, phone banking and others.
Assessment criteria
The final evaluation is dependent on:
1. Attendance in class (two absences per term are permitted)
2. The substantive value of the prepared presentation. Presentations are presented at the end of semester during the lecture.
3. Dexterity in public performance of the prepared work/presentation
4. Active participation in the lecture
Practical placement
Lack-of
Bibliography
The chosen book publications
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Box-Steffensmeier J. M., Schier S. E. (red.), The American Elections of 2012, Routledge, New York/London 2013.
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Johnson D. W., Campaigning for President. Strategy and Tactics. Routledge, New York 2013.
Johnson D. W., No Place for Amateurs. How Political Consultants Are Reshaping American Democracy, Routledge, New York 2001.
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Panagopoulos C. (red.), Politicking Online. The Transformation of Election Campaign Communications, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick/New Jersey/London 2009.
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Popkin S. L., Spekulujący wyborca: komunikacja i perswazja w kampaniach prezydenckich, [w:] Szczupaczyński J. (red.), Władza i społeczeństwo; Antologia tekstów z zakresu socjologii polityki, T.2, Wydawnictwo Scholar, Warszawa 1998.
Rodham Clinton H., Tworząc historię. Wspomnienia, Świat Książki, Warszawa 2003.
Rushefski M., Patel K., Politics, Power & the Policy Making: The Case of Health Care Reform in the 1990 s, Sharpe, New York, 1998.
Sabato L. J., The Year of Obama. How Barack Obama Won The White House, Longman, New York 2010.
Stephanopoulos G., All too Human. A Political Education, Little Brown and Company, Boston 2000.
Tracey E., Political Advertising: When More Meant Less, [w:] Johnson D. W. (red.), Campaigning for President. Strategy and Tactics, Routledge, New York/London 2014.
Trippi J., The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Harper, New York, 2004.
Tod Ch., Gawiser S., How Barack Obama Won: A State-by-State Guide to the Historic 2008 Presidential Election, Random House, New York 2009.
Waterman R., Wright, R., St. Clair G., The Image-Is-Everything Presidency. Dilemmas in American Leadership, Westview Press, Boulder 1999.
Wojtkowski Ł., Kultura masowa a marketing polityczny. Przypadek amerykańskich kampanii politycznych 2000 i 2004 roku, Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, Toruń 2010
Wojtkowski Ł., Mediatyzacja polityki. Amerykańska kampania prezydencka 2008 roku, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, Toruń 2012.
Additional information
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