Author Description

Product Description The Internet is now a part of American democracy. A majority of Americans are online and many of them use the Internet to learn political information and to follow election campaigns. Candidates now invest heavily in Web and e-mail campaign communication tools in order to reach prospectivevoters, as well as to communicate with journalists, potential donors, and political activists. How are their efforts paying off? Are voters influenced by what they see on the Internet? Do they use online resources to learn about issues and candidates that mainstream media are not covering? Is theInternet empowering the shrinking electorate to return to the polls? Campaigning Online answers these questions with a close-up look at the dynamics of the 2000 election on the Internet. Examining how candidates present themselves online, and how voters respond to their efforts - including measures of whether they learn from candidates' web sites and whether theiropinions are affected by what they see, the authors present the first systematic depiction of the role of campaign web sites in American elections. The authors paint a portrait of the voters' side and the candidates' side of campaigning on the Internet that has been unavailable so far. They report on a wealth of new data and evidence drawn from national and state-wide surveys, laboratory experiments, interviews with campaign staff, andanalysis of web sites themselves. Review "A fascinating book on the ever-increasing role of the online campaign. Bimber and Davis provide valuable insights for students of the 2000 election cycle." --Senator Harry Reid, Nevada"This remarkable book resolves the debate about the nature of the Internet's role in election campaigns. Davis and Bimber's evidence is impeccable, and their analysis is faultless. Campaigning Online belongs on the bookshelves of election analysts and practitioners and on the required reading listsof courses on the media and campaigns." --Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government & the Press, Harvard University"This empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated analysis of the web-based American political campaign of 2000 avoids the anecdotal and typically breathless speculation about how the net will change human political behavior. Instead, this path breaking study documents how the web isbecoming an integral part of the campaign process." --W. Russell Neuman, Evans Professor of Media Technology, University of Michigan"A much-needed, richly-textured empirical investigation of a key feature of online campaigning - candidate Web sites. Bimber and Davis provide a host of insights into how candidates are incorporating the Internet into their campaigns and what impact this is having on voters." --Thomas E. Mann, W.Averell Harriman Chair and Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution About the Author Bruce Bimber, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara. Richard Davis, Professor of Political Science, Brigham Young University.