Does new media technology drive election campaign change?

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Karlsen, Rune^a

Affiliations: [a] Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, and Institute for Social Research, Po. box 1097 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway. Tel.: +47 22 85 61 25; Fax: +47 22 85 44 11; E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: In the last decade or so the influence of the new information and communication technologies has received increasing attention in studies on election campaigning. However, little has been done to link the influence of ICTs on campaigning with the extensive literature on the impact of technology on society. My main concern in this paper is to relate a discussion of technological influence on society to a discussion of campaign change. In so doing I emphasize that the influence of new media technology is constrained by countervailing forces that restrain and shape the effects. Furthermore I argue that such countervailing forces will differ from one political system to the next depending on the features of the campaign environment. Hence, I relate the influence of technology in general and the influence of the new ICTs in particular to the hybridization perspective of campaign change, and discuss the influence of technology on the essential features of the so called third stage of campaigning in this perspective. I argue that new technologies shape and are shaped in interplay with existing campaign practices and traditions – maintaining distinct national patterns of campaigning.

Keywords: Election campaigning, technology, ICTs, campaign change

DOI: 10.3233/IP-2010-0208

Journal: Information Polity, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 215-225, 2010