The Web in the 2002 U.S. Elections

The 2002 campaign season in the U.S. evidenced another set of milestones in the integration of the Web into campaign strategy, and the development of a Web presence by political parties and candidates running for U.S. House, Senate and gubernatorial offices. This panel presents findings from a set of studies conducted under the rubric of the Election Web Archive project at the University of Washington and SUNY Institute of Technology, in collaboration with the Library of Congress and the Internet Archive, with funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Drawing on Web-based metadata generated by weekly observations of political sites between August and November, 2002, and data from a Web-based survey of political site producers conducted in November of 2002, the papers in this panel will address questions such as the following. What did campaigns do on the Web and why? What role did the Web play in campaign communication strategy? To what extent did campaign sites provide online structure for information, persuasion and/or mobilization? What kinds of referential and/or link-based relationships were created between campaigns and the press on their respective sites?

Participants:

Kirsten Foot, Unviersity of Washington, USA (Chair)
Meghan Dougherty, University of Washington, USA (Presenter)
Jennifer Stromer-Galley, U. at Albany, USA (Presenter)
Steven M. Schneider, SUNY Institute of Technology, USA (Presenter)
Michael A. Xenos, University of Washington, USA (Presenter)
Philip Howard, University of Washington, USA (Presenter)

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