
The days of revolutionary campaign strategies are gone. The extraordinary has become ordinary, and campaigns at all levels, from the federal to the municipal, have realized the necessity of incorporating digital media technologies into their communications strategies. Still, little is understood about how these practices have been taken up and routinized on a wide scale, or the ways in which the use of these technologies is tied to new norms and understandings of political participation and citizenship in the digital age. The vocabulary that we do possess for speaking about what counts as citizenship in a digital age is limited. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a federal-level election, interviews with communications and digital media consultants, and textual analysis of campaign materials, this book traces the emergence and solidification of campaign strategies that reflect what it means to be a citizen in the digital era. It identifies shifting norms and emerging trends to build new theories of citizenship in contemporary democracy. Baldwin-Philippi argues that these campaign practices foster engaged and skeptical citizens. But, rather than assess the quality or level of participation and citizenship due to the use of technologies, this book delves into the way that digital strategies depict what good citizenship ought to be and the goals and values behind the tactics.
This book investigates how the integration of digital media technologies into political campaigns reshapes contemporary norms of citizenship and democratic participation. Jessica Baldwin-Philippi, a scholar in media and political communication, utilizes a combination of ethnographic fieldwork, professional interviews, and textual analysis to examine the professionalization of digital campaign strategies. Her argument posits that these technological practices do not merely facilitate communication but actively construct specific definitions of what constitutes a responsible and engaged citizen in the modern era.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars in the field of political communication recognize this work as a significant contribution to understanding the professionalization of digital campaigning. Experts frequently highlight the author's focus on the normative implications of campaign strategies as a valuable shift away from purely instrumental analyses of election technology.
Page Count:
224
Publication Date:
2015-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190231939
ISBN-13:
9780190231934
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