There has been a lot of discussion about the rising importance of new media in political campaigning. Many of the loudest proponents of it are, understandably, part of that new media. Some of the more grandiose claims come from a few of the larger left-wing sites, of course. And frankly, the new media is making more and more inroads into traditional media with newspapers and television networks starting up blogs and hiring bloggers in some cases. But how much difference does new media actually make in influencing voters. Well, in Iowa the answer is not very much – at least according to the New York Times.
It’s not that the Democratic presidential campaigns in Iowa haven’t tried to reach out. Their staffs have bombarded prospective caucusgoers with e-mail and text messages and with recorded voice mail from celebrities. They have built elaborate MySpace and Facebook pages in the candidates’ names, adding thousands of online “friends.” And aides adorned with new titles like “director of e-strategy” talk rapturously of how the Internet is transforming politics.
Yet even the campaigns concede that many caucusgoers in Iowa are happily encased in an old-media bubble, immune to the digital overtures of the modern presidential campaign and much more tuned in to commercials on television than to videos on a candidate’s Web site.
“It’s clearly true,” said Joe Trippi, a senior adviser to former Senator John Edwards, “that blogs and Web sites, and even some of the cool stuff that our team is doing in Iowa, has got less of an impact in Iowa.”
One reason is that the state’s population is older, and so are its caucus voters. According to the 2004 National Election Pool entrance poll in Iowa, 27 percent of Democratic caucusgoers were 65 or older — people less likely to download candidate podcasts, though more inclined to withstand the rigors of caucusing, which can require hours of votes and revotes.
Using technology to attract younger, first-time voters was crucial to Howard Dean’s strategy four years ago, and Mr. Edwards and Senator Barack Obama have tried to mimic it. (Indeed, Mr. Obama in particular appears to have plenty of young supporters, although it is unclear whether they will actually caucus.)
But privately, campaign aides say the ramped-up Internet efforts are intended to build buzz and positive press, with little expectation that they will translate directly into votes. (Mr. Dean, once considered the 2004 Democratic front-runner, finished third in Iowa.)
The Times is not saying that all new media effort is useless. Frankly, though, this is a fairly well done article and not the hit piece one would expect from the paper that the blogosphere loves to hate. Basically, the problem is that the demographics in Iowa are somewhat different. The smart campaigns have figured that out and are working the traditional means of political communication more heavily. But even in Iowa, the new media is having some impact – just not as much as proponents would have you believe.
Without the internet Dr. Dean would have been just another Mike Gravel.
I will readily concede that the impact of the New Media would be hard to quantify, but if the impact is nil, where is the audience going? Newspaper circulation and TV ratings continue to decline. If those people aren’t looking to the New Media, are they just tuning out current events altogether?
Everybody didn’t buy an automobile the first year they came out but it would have been smart to start building the roads for automobiles. How old are these “older” Iowa caucus goers? Because in my family, the 60 year olds who are interested in politics enough to vote in the primaries follow politics on the net. The dirty little secret of the Iowa caucuses is that these older voters aren’t “activists” entirely; lots of them are elderly people picked up in buses at senior centers and led around the caucus process. Less than 10% of elegible Iowa voters caucus so the party establishment can control the process with a small show of voters.