On-Line Interaction
On-Line Interaction and Why Candidates
Avoid It
By Jennifer Stromer-Galley
The Internet has properties that make possible increased interaction between citizens and political leaders. Interviews of campaign staff and analysis of U.S. candidate websites in 1996 and 1998, however, indicate that most political campaigns
are resistant to using human-interactive features. I conceptualize interaction, offering that there are two kinds: human interaction and media interaction. More
democratizing components of the medium, human interaction, are avoided in
favor of media interaction because of the potential for a loss of control and ambiguity of campaign communication.
In March 1994, Vice President Al Gore spoke before the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Buenos Aires about building a Global Information Infrastructure (GII), an electronic network that would make possible a high-speed
network for business and government to share information internationally. In his
address, Gore explained:
The GII will be a metaphor for democracy itself. Representative democracy
does not work with an all-powerful central government. . . . Instead, representative democracy relies on the assumption that the best way for a nation to
make its political decisions is for each citizen—the human equivalent of the
self-contained processor—to have the power to control his or her own life.
Furthermore, the GII would “promote the functioning of democracy by greatly
enhancing the participation of citizens in decision-making” (Gore, 1994). The
network of networks, he argued, will enable citizens to engage in the governing
process by making participation easier and faster.
Jennifer Stromer-Galley is a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication at the
University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include political communication, rhetorical theory
and criticism, and new technology. Part of this research was funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable
Trusts. The author would like to thank Aryeh Aslan and Carly Salaman for their assistance with the
1998 interviews, as well as Heather Ross and Alana Nappi for their assistance in the 1998 website
analysis. She also thanks W. Russell Neuman, Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, and the
anonymous reviewers for their insights and critical comments on earlier drafts of this essay.
Copyright © 2000 International Communication Association
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Gore’s vision raised the ire of James Brook and Iain Boal. In their collective
mind it is absurd to imagine technology creating a gateway between citizens and
government leaders: “Machines mediating between citizen and ruling institution
would in no way enhance individual freedom; instead, this scheme would further
naturalize the force of law, regulation procedure, and other codes of conduct
while further depoliticizing the administration of society” (1995, p. xiii). Their
edited collection testifies to a strong desire for “resisting the virtual life.” Capitalistic institutions, they argue, will continue to encourage “total communication” and
“ever-increasing profits and control” while discouraging genuine participation in
the process of government (p. xiii).
In this essay, I will engage the debate from a slightly different perspective. The
network of networks, to which computers in U.S. citizens’ homes, offices, and
libraries are connected, has properties that make possible increased participation.
The technology, however, is not being implemented to promote increased deliberation between citizens and politicians and amongst the citizenry. Using a typology of interactivity to provide a framework for thinking about the Internet, I
assess the 1996 presidential and 1998 gubernatorial campaigns and conclude that
most political candidates are inclined toward a façade of interaction facilitated
through response-feedback mechanisms built into the technology. The increased
political participation Gore envisioned did not occur on presidential and gubernatorial candidate websites because candidates did not enable citizens to insert their
voices into the campaign.
In order to make concrete this argument, I offer descriptions of the websites
and interview data from staff members of the 1996 U.S. presidential and 1998
gubernatorial candidates’ campaigns. The interviews suggest that candidates used
the Internet as another medium through which to articulate their campaign message. In particular, their websites gave them a space to detail policy positions,
share personal history, and herald past legislative successes. Campaigns chose not
to use the Internet to engage in deliberation with citizens. To do so would open
up the possibility for burdensome exchange among candidates, campaign staffs,
and citizens, which could entail losing control over the communication environment and losing the ability to remain ambiguous in policy positions.
Mass Media, the Internet, and a Democratizing Effect
A hundred years ago the concern facing the U.S. liberal-democratic structure was
with extending the franchise beyond White, land-owning men. Today, although
ethnic and racial minorities, women, and people over 18 can vote, the citizenry
still appear to be disaffected from government. Voting is at a 60-year low and
public opinion polls indicate that citizens do not trust governmental institutions
(Pew Research Center, 1998). Researchers seek answers as to why this negative
tide of apathy and distrust in government exists. One area people look to as a
culprit is the technology of the mass media.
Electronic media can contribute both to the massification of society and alienation of its individual members or the promotion of a communal experience in
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which citizens mutually participate and have an impact in government. Bertelson
(1992) explained that “it seems reasonable to presume that a social covenant such
as government should be altered in significant ways by shifts in communication
technologies” (p. 330). The technologies we use to communicate with each other
can serve either to bring us together or to isolate us. In McLuhanesque fashion,
Bertelson offered a theory of media in which media drives and alters the existing
social structures. Its power to alter, however, depends on how it is implemented.
The question becomes this: Which communication technologies in their implementations have the possibility of converging a large, diverse society, such as the
United States, into a community, and which “massifies” our nation, isolating citizens from each other and the process of government? Rucinski (1991) argued that
the mass media technology exemplified by television, radio, and newspapers is
not conducive to bringing citizens together as a community. These technologies
are structured as one-way, top-down communication. A structured, well-defined
industry produces the content for the masses, with few opportunities for the masses
to speak back to the industry. She explained that in order for participatory government to work, for citizens to participate in government decision-making, citizens
must be able to communicate, interact with each other, and discuss politics. That
kind of process cannot occur in a unidirectional media environment. Traditional
mass media technologies restrict or at least create few opportunities for communication to occur easily among citizens and between citizens and political leaders.
If the traditional mass media do not make it possible for citizens to participate
actively in the political process, then what does? Increasingly, the magic elixir
appears in the form of the Internet. Academic, organizational, and governmental
eyes are turned to this new technology, with its many channels, loosely organized
and structured for communication, to reinvigorate the masses to participate in the
process of government.
There are two schools of thought on how the Internet may affect democratic
practice. One school holds that the Internet can be used as Bertelson (1992)
suggests—to make it possible for people to participate directly in the decisionmaking process of government. No longer might representation be necessary. The
new technology could make plebiscite government possible, because people could
log onto the Internet, become informed, discuss in a political forum the problem,
solutions, and consequences, and then cast a vote. Movements in California, Florida,
and Minnesota are working to implement this technology for “direct democracy.”
The other school of thought wants the technology used to make representation
more responsive to nonelite citizens1 (Hacker, 1996). Representation is still the
foundation, but channels of direct communication between citizens and political
leaders increase to allow greater voice in the agenda, debate, and decisions made
by representatives. The Internet enhances current and fledgling liberal-democratic
forms of government by giving people more opportunities to act as citizens, beyond simply voting.
1
By elites, I refer to those who hold power in the governmental process—primarily the educated, the
wealthy, and those who are informed and engaged in the political process. Nonelites are those who
typically are less educated, less wealthy, and who attend less to politics.
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Whether there is a shift towards plebiscite government or an enhancement of
representative democracy, the research suggests that the Internet may facilitate
these possibilities in two ways: by promoting an increase in horizontal communication among people and an increase in vertical communication between people
and political elites. Research into both areas, as well as a third area, the civic
network, implements both vertical and horizontal communication as well as information dissemination of local politics.
The research on horizontal communication is mixed on whether the kind of
discussion that occurs in on-line forums meets democratic ideals. Using the lens of
Habermas’s theory of communicative action (1984), Leonhirth, Mindich, and
Straumanis (1997) argue that on-line discussion through such forums as e-mail
lists allows nonelites to negotiate multiple views of reality; however, when they
looked at actual discussion on the Listserver, Jhistory, they suggested that discussants did not have enough stake in the conversation to form the community
necessary for sustained discussion of complex issues. This is a concern shared by
others (Streck, 1998). Leonhirth et al. observed that these discussion forums were
comprised of people with shared interests, thereby precluding the necessary clash
of worldviews to play out among diverse groups of people. In a similar study of
web-based discussion forums, Murray (1998), who created a private discussion on
global sustainability, found that his web forums allowed people to work through
complex problems, such as global sustainability, and begin drafting public policy.
His discussants, however, were elites who had a stake or expertise in the subject
matter.
Discussion in its casual conversational form is not the soul of democracy; rulegoverned, public, civil, yet uncomfortable discussion oriented toward problemsolving is (Schudson, 1997). Research that assesses the kind of horizontal talk that
is possible on-line suggests that although interaction occurs, much of this is casual
conversation in “lifestyle enclaves,” in which there “is the simulacrum of democracy” and a culture that “isolates individuals while seducing them with mere appearances of communication and collectivity” (Doheny-Farina, 1996, p. 7). In conversational situations on-line in which there are no clear rules, where no one
has a stake in the discussion or its outcomes, or when the conversation is not
politically oriented, genuine deliberation does not occur. When the conversation
is political, on-line conversants attack one another in ways White (1997) attributes
to teens: “much of what passes for political discussion can best be compared to
two teenage siblings in the heat of argument: ‘Did not! Did so! Did not!! Did so!!’
and so forth” (p. 27). Benson’s (1996) research on Usenet groups, which are
discussion groups, often on political topics, found that at one level, the anonymous, confrontational, ideological, debate does not meet the ideals of democratic
discussion offered by theorists, because of these characteristics. At another level,
“amidst the name-calling, the flaming, and the ideological demonization common
to both sides there is a demonstrable faith of some sort in the power of argument
and passionate advocacy” (p. 34). Although the discussion can be uncivil and
ideological, people still engage in it; it still matters to people who want to engage
in political discussion.
The second kind of democratizing effect is citizens communicating with their
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political leaders in setting the agenda, participating in the decision-making process, or both—in other words, vertical communication. Computer-mediated human communication can serve to expand citizen participation in governmental
affairs, Hacker and Todino (1996) explain. Because of the feedback loop made
possible over the Internet, through e-mail or on-line “chat,” citizens can have
direct input into the process of governance. Hacker and Todino caution, however,
that if political officials do not allow for a feedback mechanism over the Internet,
then it will be reduced to a high-tech polling mechanism for measuring changing
public attitudes. In their assessment of the White House’s electronic communication, they concluded that it contributed little to genuine input by citizens to government officials. The e-mail list served as a means for public relations and information dissemination rather than a mechanism for citizen feedback into the affairs
of government.
The research concerning the on-line political campaign and vertical communication also is discouraging. Davis (1999), for example, conducted a detailed study
of political candidate websites in 1996—who was on-line and what was their
content—and found that the major political parties and their candidates had sophisticated sites distinguishable in content and quality from lesser known party
and candidate sites. In looking at the interactive features on-line, he found that of
100 political campaign sites, 75% of the candidates used interactive features, such
as e-mail addresses, on their sites. None of the candidates, however, used the
Internet for public discussion with citizens nor fostered public discussion among
citizens.
An analysis of candidate websites in 1998 also suggests candidates did not
provide opportunities for citizen engagement. Kamarck (1999), in a content analysis,
found that of the 1,296 candidates running for Congress or governor, 43% had a
campaign website. Most contained issue positions and biographical information
about the candidate (81%). On the interactive features of the medium, however,
the candidates’ sites left much to be desired. In Kamarck’s coding scheme, only
two sites were “fully interactive,” i.e., users visiting the site had some ability to
engage in a dialogue with the candidate or campaign staff. The candidate on the
on-line campaign trail leaves little opportunity to engage directly in discussion
with the people.
The civic network comprises the third element of the democratizing effect.
Civic networks have been established in more than 200 cities and locales across
the globe (Bryan, Tsagarousianou, & Tambini, 1998) and are designed to provide
new channels for access to local government, political information, and participation
in the decision-making process using networked computers both on and off the
Internet (Brants, Huizenga, & van Meerten, 1996; Bryan et al., 1998; Francissen &
Brants, 1998; O’Sullivan, 1995). Networks established by communities and reviewed
by scholars in Manchester (Bryan, 1996), Amsterdam (Brants et al., 1996; Francissen
& Brants, 1998), Greece (Tsagarousianou, 1998), and Berlin (Schmidtke, 1998)
suggest that the technology holds promise. In the introduction to their edited
collection of essays on research into civic networks, Bryan et al. (1998) explain
that civic networks were developed specifically with the creation of a public
sphere in mind. They explain that citizens want, “a public sphere not colonised by
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the state and political parties and not subjected to the logics of commercialization
and commodification prevalent in contemporary Western societies—a public sphere
in which citizens could freely engage in deliberation and public debate” (p. 4).
Altering the form and the channels communication takes changes the content and
who generates it. Specifically, (a) new spheres open up and the communication
technologies allow people to pursue and grow common interests, (b) if given the
opportunities, people actively pursue political information, and (c) interactive
media institutionalize people’s right to receive a reply to queries.
Although civic network enthusiasts maintain high hopes, many are cautious to
conclude that it has indeed achieved its lofty goals. In assessing the outcomes of
civic networks, Bryan et al. (1998) explain that “civic networking will not realize
its objectives unless it becomes more realistic in its goals and methods” (p. 13). Of
central concern is access (Brants et al., 1996). If the majority of people are not online, they are excluded from such opportunities. Those who are on-line, they
caution, are resistant to government regulation and oversight—even if it is an
attempt to bring more people on-line. Bryan et al. argue that some of the objectives
of civic networking require both government funding and regulation. Civic network
projects that have as their aim to educate citizens to use computer technology as
part of an economic training initiative may have better luck achieving their goals.
Similar to civic network researchers, I hold an optimism that the Internet can
offer a public space for rational-critical debate outside or alongside consumer
society. Habermas’s (1989) critique of the contemporary public sphere as one that
has been destroyed as a result of the development of mass media and consumer
society rings true if one trains one’s eyes only at what we now think of as traditional
media: newspapers, television, and radio. However, I see the possibility for people
in on-line discussion forums such as web-based bulletin boards, through e-mail
discussion lists, or in real-time “chat” spaces, to debate issues with other people
including elites and representatives of our governmental institutions. Human
interaction, mediated through the network, exists in ways those older mediated
communications cannot provide.
The way political elections are conducted is suggestive of the kind of democracy
a nation has (Mancini & Swanson, 1996). A democracy that holds elections in
which the candidates are open to prolonged and engaged debate with citizens
and journalists in a public space is preferable to one in which candidates avoid
engaging citizens and the press. A closed campaign is problematic because those
who wish to be representatives are unwilling to open themselves up to those who
would be represented. When one assesses the way the Internet is being
implemented by political campaigns, it is evident that political candidates are
using their websites in ways similar to their television or radio advertisements—as
one-way messages. The two-way nature of the Internet, however, reveals the
closed nature of such campaigns.
The question that arises is: Why does the Internet not get implemented in more
democratic ways, that is, in ways that allow people to communicate on public
issues in a public space with elites and with one another? To address this question,
I first distinguish two forms of interaction—computer-mediated human interaction
and media interaction. The importance of these distinctions resides in the way the
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Internet has come to be utilized by political candidates. Candidates utilize the
media-interactive features to create an appearance of interaction and limit the
possibilities for people to engage them and their staffs in prolonged human-human
discussion.
On-Line Interaction
Computer-Mediated Human Interaction
Computer-mediated human interaction is prolonged interaction between two or
more people through the channel of a computer network. Rafaeli (1988) defines
interaction as: “an expression of the extent that in a given series of communication
exchanges, any third (or later) transmission (or message) is related to the degree
to which previous exchanges referred to an even earlier transmission” (p. 111).
Communication is interactive when there is a high degree of responsiveness and
reflexivity. Responsiveness—when the receiver takes on the role of the sender
and replies in some way to the original message source—is an essential component
of human interaction. It is not a linear mode of communication; rather, it is an
integrated exchange of dynamic message sending and responding. Communicators
must be able to switch roles and turn-take freely.2 Out of this process emerges a
communicative phenomenon in which participants share the burden of
communication equally, subverting hierarchical, linear structures of communication.
Implicit in Rafaeli’s (1988) argument is the idea that communicators are equally
capable of sharing and receiving information. Both or all participants in the
interactive conversation have a channel that allows them to send and receive
information, and they have the cognitive resources to engage in the exchange.
Rafaeli also holds a tacit expectation that the information sent and received is
valuable and will arouse a response in the parties involved in the communication.
Utterances, such as “Hand me my coat,” while provoking a physical response of
the coat being delivered, do not invite or provoke further communication.
Human interaction is the basis for Habermas’s (1984) theory of communicative
action and is the foundation for a public sphere. The free give and take of dynamic
deliberation occurs when there is feedback offered by a discussant in an exchange.
Human interaction, whether mediated through wires and electricity or modulated
through our voice boxes and carried over the air, is the mechanism whereby
deliberation can occur. A look at the literature suggests that those who argue for
or against the Internet and the World Wide Web’s democratizing potential often
have in mind what I term the “human interactive” capabilities of the Internet
(Brants et al., 1996; Calabrese & Borchert, 1996; Corrado, 1996; Hacker, 1996;
2
Zappan, Gurak, & Doheny-Farina’s research (1997) of a MOO colloquium found that the faculty and
students involved began their communication in a manner similar to that found in a traditional classroom.
Once participants grew comfortable with the interaction, the traditional classroom behavior broke
down and “‘faculty’ and ‘students’ appear[ed] to exchange roles” (p. 8). I believe that this ability to
switch roles and interact freely in the manner that Zappan et al. indicate is what Rafaeli (1988) had in
mind in his definition of interaction.
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Newhagen, Cordes, & Levy, 1995; White, 1997). Applying to the Internet the insight
Canadian communications scholar Harold Adams Innis (1951) brought to older
communication media, the ability of individuals and groups of individuals to interact,
is an inherent feature or “bias” of the Internet that has the powerful potential to
influence social institutions.
Media Interaction
Some scholars and proponents of the Internet talk about its interactive capabilities
and highlight the interactive nature of the medium itself (c.f. Bolter, 1991; Landow,
1992; Lanham, 1993). They place emphasis on the ease with which people can
control the medium to make it provide the information they want. With the invention
of hypertext, users of the Internet are allowed a more fluid experience than with
other media, such as television. With television, viewers are limited to the programs
placed on the air or through the cable by the producers and owners of that
industry. Whereas a satellite dish can bring 500 channels, the Internet can bring
500,000. On the Internet, the user has more control in determining what the
entertainment or information experience will be, and a nonelite media owner can
produce content for the network of networks. Users can interact with the medium
itself, through hyperlinks, filling out electronic surveys, downloading information,
watching streaming audio and video, playing games, even purchasing goods and
services—without ever directly communicating with another person.
Interaction with the medium itself appears to be an integral element of the online experience, therefore I see a need for this kind of interaction to be further
defined. If Rafaeli’s (1988) operationalization of interaction is a focused message
transaction between people, then that transaction should be distinguished from
the kind of interaction that happens between people and the medium itself. The
former I offer as human interaction, the latter as media interaction.
The concept of media interaction has existed since at least the 1940s. The
cybernetics theories of the time defined interaction simply as feedback within a
medium; interaction, then, is an element of the channel itself (Wiener, 1948).
Telephony illustrates well this notion. Copper twisted-pair wires channel voices
and data. Satellite technology, an invisible extension of twisted-pair wires, sends
signals through the air. In both media, the data and voice messages are carried
back and forth across the medium. Telephony is interactive because the medium
conducts messages without dictating the direction of the flow of those messages
(Abramson, Artherton, & Orren, 1988). The channel allows for a feedback loop to
occur either between technologies or between technology and people. The
airwaves, fiber optics, microwaves, twisted-pair, and satellite communications have
a possibility for two-way communication.3
The defining characteristic of interaction is feedback. This characteristic holds
for both “media” and “human” interaction. What distinguishes them is in what or
3
Even though two-way technology exists, people do not necessarily employ media for two-way
communication. Interactive television, in existence since the late 1980s, has not yet caught on in the
marketplace. Research is still needed to determine to what uses citizens put media technologies and,
in particular, websites.
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who causes the feedback. In cybernetics theory, the medium itself has agency for
feedback. When I use my mouse in my web browser to click on a hyperlink, a set
of processes run, sending my page request through the network to the hyperlinked
site’s web server, and it in turn sends the new page back to my computer for
viewing. I have not communicated with a person directly, but with a human-built
technology that responds to my request. In Rafaeli’s (1988) model of humaninteraction, the people engaged in the communicative moment provide the
feedback. I ask my colleague about the actions of the World Trade Organization,
which invites a response from her, and more comments and opinions from me.
It can be argued that all technologies are an extension of and for human
communication; that is, all communication technologies—from our vocal chords
and the airwaves to the telephone receiver and twisted-pair wires—facilitate human
communication and thus the focus should be on the communicative exchange
between the people without regard for the channel. I believe, however, that a
distinction between human-interaction and media-interaction allows one to focus
on how technology itself is utilized to carry (or hinder) a message exchange.
Rafaeli (1988) argues that “interactivity is not a medium characteristic. Media and
channels may set upper bounds, remove barriers, or provide necessary conditions
for interactivity levels” (pp. 119–120). His concern for conflated notions of interaction
led him to rule out “media interaction” as interaction per se. I posit that there is a
need to look at and work with a concept of media-interaction, in part because of
the communication offered by the Internet. The Internet continues to be heralded
as reducing hierarchical barriers to communication and promoting more
opportunities for citizens to communicate with political leaders. But, the question
is: Do the Internet and its channels, the web, e-mail, and chat forums, indeed get
constructed and used to reduce those communication barriers? How the technology
is configured to channel communication between humans and/or between humans
and machines is a critical component of just how readily these hierarchical barriers
are being removed. To ignore media-interaction as a form of interaction, I believe,
is to risk ignoring the important structural components that facilitate or hinder
human communication in many contexts on-line, including the political. In the
context of political campaign communication, it is important to note whether
candidates and people are genuinely interacting with each other in a process of
deliberation, or if the most people can get is the artifacts of what candidates want
citizens to see, read, or believe.
Implementation of Interaction on Candidate Websites
The Candidates’ Media Interaction On-Line
An analysis of the candidate websites indicates that the candidates’ campaigns
exploited the media interactive capabilities of the medium but neglected the human
interactive capabilities. Websites are an intriguing on-line communication platform
to the Internet because different communication modalities converge there. A
website can be static information, similar to a book. It can be dynamic, offering
streaming audio and video and hyperlinks beyond its borders. It can be a launching
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pad to send someone an e-mail message either by starting an e-mail program or
presenting a form for someone to type in the necessary information and
automatically sending it. A website can even serve as host to a forum for people
conversing with one another or talking with politicians, pop stars, or book authors.
A site also can be set up to allow conversants to post a message in its space for
others to read and to respond and for the initial poster to respond in turn. Thus, a
website can be dynamic or static, human interactive, media interactive, or both.
I studied both Senator Bob Dole’s and President Bill Clinton’s websites in 1996
and the websites of 10 states’ gubernatorial candidates in 1998 and conducted
interviews of campaign staff. The time span allows for a longitudinal look at the
uses to which the Internet is being put by candidates, rather than the more common
cross-sectional studies conducted on candidates’ uses of the Internet. Studying
different office levels (gubernatorial and presidential) reduces a concern that
candidates are anomalies in their Internet use because of the offices they seek.
The states studied for the gubernatorial campaign analysis were picked for diversity
in demographics, political party strength, incumbency, and predicted
competitiveness [See Appendix].4
My analysis of these sites suggests that the candidates’ websites utilized mediainteraction. The candidates in both election years used hyperlinks to link pages
together to create a site. The presidential candidates did not hyperlink to pages
outside of their own site, but of the 19 gubernatorial candidates, 13 hyperlinked to
external sites. The links primarily went to their web host and/or website creator’s
page, to groups who endorsed them, or to newspapers that wrote about them. In
1996 we did not see audio or video of the candidates’ advertisements. In 1998, 10
of the candidate sites I studied had audio and 9 had video. Audio downloads
included recordings of announcement or stump speeches, commercials, and
biographical narratives. Video downloads were primarily of advertisements,
biographical narratives, speeches, and debates.
Dole’s website was noteworthy for the degree of media interactivity possible
on the site. It surpassed Clinton’s site and the gubernatorial sites of 1998. His site
was structured to allow people to customize the website so that, when viewed,
the issues they cared about most were directly hyperlinked from the index page,
and any updates to a section were indicated. A user also could customize the
images on the index page to suit one’s aesthetic tastes. Other media-interactive
elements included a Dole trivia quiz, downloadable “Dole for President”
screensavers and wallpaper (in various logos, images, and designs), and “Dole for
President” or “Dole/Kemp ’96” buttons. Users could also send someone an e-mail
postcard stating, in various forms, “I support Bob Dole.” In 1998, although a few
candidates offered downloadable “bumper stickers,” these other kinds of creative
uses of media-interaction were absent from the sites.
Another Dole feature is intriguing because, surprisingly, it rarely has been
duplicated since. The site had a “Feedback” option at the end of each position
4
The research on the 1998 gubernatorial elections was done in conjunction with a larger study by the
Annenberg Public Policy Center and the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of
Pennsylvania. That research was funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
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statement on the general election site. At the end of each issue position was a
scale. The user could indicate what level of priority the particular issue should
have in the Dole administration. The text read, “On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10
being the highest), what priority do you think the Dole Administration should
give to this issue?” This interactive scale—presumably allowing users to communicate
to the campaign—created an environment in which the Dole camp articulated a
desire for feedback from users. In an interview with Rob Arena, creator of Dole’s
campaign website, he said the campaign kept track of the responses from that
feedback option but did not factor them into Dole’s policy articulations.
Media interactivity creates an environment in which users can control the
information they receive. Access to information is an important component to
democratic participation. In order for the people to participate in government,
they must know something about the government, its structure, the participants,
and the issues under consideration or in need of being addressed. The Internet
provides access to that kind of information easily and with low transaction costs
after the initial “sunk” cost of purchasing the computer and buying Internet access.
Political candidates’ websites often include detailed information about themselves
and their issue positions. The Dole and Clinton sites contained detailed biographical
information and had issue positions on a wide range of topics. Dole included a
detailed description of his economic plan spanning several webpages. All 19
gubernatorial candidates had webpages in their sites dedicated to biographical
information, and 18 had pages dedicated to issue positions. Internet users who
visited these campaign websites could choose which issues to read about, whether
or not to download an advertisement or an announcement speech, or familiarize
themselves with the candidate’s personal history. A survey conducted by the Pew
Center for the People & the Press at the end of the elections in 1998 found that of
those who went on-line to get news or information about the elections, 7% visited
candidate websites. In 1996 25% reported visiting a candidate’s website. The drop
in 1998 can be attributed in part, if not in whole, to the lesser degree of attention
that local and statewide races receive by the press and by citizens. Nonetheless, a
significant percentage of the electorate is visiting candidate websites for political
information. Although potential voters who are on-line can get this information,
the question still remains whether they can engage in human interaction with the
candidates or campaign staffs.
The Candidates’ Human Interaction On-Line
Americans around the country in focus groups conducted by the Kettering
Foundation in 1991 indicated that what they want is not more accountability by
politicians but more access to participation in the process of setting the public
policy agenda. They want more public participation in the dialogue around public
policy decisions (Harwood, 1991, cited in Hacker, 1996). This participation requires
that there be not only more opportunities for interaction, but a higher quality of
interaction, in which citizens and legislators engage each other in dialogue more
rich than form letters and public opinion polls.
Although there is the possibility that this technology can be implemented to
promote an increase in vertical communication between the average citizen and
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the political leader or representative, the reality is that political leaders are resistant
to creating this kind of communication channel. Channels for human interaction
in 1996, such as electronic bulletin boards, chat forums, or e-mail addresses to the
candidate from which a user could reasonably expect a personal reply, did not
exist on the websites. In 1998, the picture was little better. All had either an e-mail
address or a contact form to use to send a message to the campaign; However,
they were not always diligent in responding to their e-mail.5 Jesse Ventura’s website
specifically stated that there would be no response to e-mail messages but promised
that Ventura would be notified of the concerns or issues raised in e-mail.
Web boards, which were not used by the presidential candidates in the general
election, were used by two of the gubernatorial candidates. Web-based bulletin
boards provide a space for people to post a message for others who visit the site
to see and respond. The messages are typically organized into topics that become
“threads” of conversation. This kind of discussion forum is often used on on-line
newspaper sites with discussion forums of current events. Both general election
candidates with web boards ran in Minnesota: Reform candidate Jesse Ventura
and Democratic candidate Hubert “Skip” Humphrey III. On both sites the bulletin
boards were heavily used by citizens, with dozens of messages posted daily during
the final weeks of the campaign. Ventura’s campaign utilized the board as the only
means of communication for Ventura’s 72-hour drive across Minnesota the last
weekend before the election. Ventura campaign organizers would post on the
bulletin board which town and what location Ventura would stop in next, and
Minnesotans would show up. The bulletin board was used for discussion and
organization.
Why Not Human Interaction?
Human-interactive channels on the Internet are not utilized by candidates for at
least three reasons: they are burdensome to the campaign, candidates risk losing
control of the communication environment, and they no longer can provide
ambiguous campaign discourse.
Burdensome
Although campaign staff members who designed the websites explained that
interaction was an important part of the site concept, Laura Segal, assistant to
Clinton’s communication director and overseer of that website, explained that
interaction is “a lot harder to do in practice than in desire” (personal communication,
October 1997). Rob Arena, Dole’s web creator, explained that their website was
5
In a test I conducted early in the campaign season, an e-mail message with a request for clarification
of three issues, crime, school vouchers, and taxes, was sent to all candidates with an e-mail address.
The message was sent on September 14, the day before the primaries in Minnesota and Maryland.
Sending the message the day before the election, I hoped, would test the importance campaigns
placed on their Internet communications. Of the 20 candidates who had e-mail addresses, only 8
(44%) ever responded. Of those, 3 responses were received within 4 days; the rest came up to 2 weeks
later. Of the Minnesota and Maryland candidates, only 1 responded the day of the election.
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On-Line Interaction
used to augment and extend the campaign’s literature and positions (personal
communication, October 1997). In Arena’s estimation, people who came to Dole’s
website were looking for information about Dole—information they were not
getting in other media. Arena believed that “those people should have that
information.” More interactive features distract the campaign from providing that
information.
Interactive forums such as direct e-mail exchanges and web boards were not
conducive to the objective of winning an election, in the candidates’ estimation;
hence, they are not used. E-mail, a private forum in which people could ask
questions of or raise issues with the candidate, drains resources from more pressing
campaign needs. Both Arena and Segal explained that the presidential candidate
had neither the staff nor the time to handle the potential bombardment of e-mail
messages, which is why they chose not to put an e-mail address up at all.6 Arena
acknowledged that people might have been annoyed when they visited Dole’s
website and found no way to e-mail him. The campaign, however, was more
willing to take that risk than to offer an e-mail address for people to send messages
to when there was little likelihood of a response. A lack of response to an e-mail
message could be more damaging and alienating than not providing an e-mail
address at all.
Of the gubernatorial candidates, Ellen Sauerbrey’s web developer, Glenn
McCalley, reported receiving 600–700 e-mail messages a day in the last days of the
Maryland campaign. Prior to that, they were receiving approximately 200 a day
(personal communication, November 8, 1998). Humphrey’s Minnesota campaign
had volunteers handle questions on general issues. Tim Johnson, Humphrey’s
campaign manager, explained that specific questions, such as the milk price formula,
would be forwarded to him or the press handlers for answers. He noted, however,
that he did not always have time to answer such questions: “If we had time, we
would answer” (personal communication, November 7, 1998). Smaller campaigns
with fewer volunteers and staff would be even less equipped to handle e-mail.
One solution to this is the e-mail list, utilized by 42% of the gubernatorial
candidate sites, but not the presidential sites. Visitors to the website sign up to
receive timely updates from the campaign via an e-mail address. In effect, these email lists are similar to direct mail. The campaign creates the message and sends it
to all people who are on the mailing list. Recipients of the e-mail list message,
however, are unable to send messages back to the campaign through that
mechanism, nor can they e-mail the other people on the list. Although the e-mail
list serves to keep interested people updated on the latest events and information
from the campaign, it is still a one-way, top-down communication paradigm.
Real-time chat forums pose similar problems to the campaign. The presidential
candidates considered and rejected participating in or hosting real-time chat forums
because they would not efficiently meet the objective of winning the election.
6
The assumption both appeared to share about e-mail was that because of the ease with which citizens
could contact the candidate through this technology, citizens would overwhelm the campaigns with email messages. Telephoning or letter writing requires (presumably) greater effort than the click of a
“mail to” hyperlink.
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Journal of Communication, Autumn 2000
Segal explained that Clinton and his staff felt that time constraints on the President
eliminated the option of having him do any kind of on-line discussion. His time
and energy were better spent on face-to-face contact with the people and on
television. Arena offered the same explanation for Dole. The time and money
needed to hire and make available a technical person and to keep Dole at
headquarters for an hour to answer the questions was not worth the contact he
would have with people on-line. Time and energy are better spent on more
traditional, “tried and true” campaign strategies.
Loss of Control
In my interviews with the campaign staff who oversaw the campaign websites,
the commonly shared concern is that they will lose control over the content of
their site and over the communication situation in general. McCalley, of Sauerbrey’s
campaign, explained that although they thought of setting up a chat room in
which Sauerbrey would be present in real time to answer questions, they never
got to it because of other campaign demands. They also talked about having a
bulletin board but
the feeling there was that we weren’t sure that we wanted things going on the
website over which we had no control. We were concerned that somebody
would make some wild off-the-wall comment, and then we’d be reading in the
Baltimore Sun, “the Sauerbrey Website said this or that,” when it really wasn’t
us that said it. We just decided not to do that. (personal communication,
November 8, 1998)
Loss of control is a key concern in hosting chat forums or bulletin boards of any
kind. This concern was shared at the campaign of Buddy Mackay in Florida. Andy
Mackay, self-titled “Web Guru,” explained that the campaign leadership was
uncomfortable with a web board. They worried that comments they deemed
inappropriate would be posted to the site, and then they would have to contend
with censoring, which could raise its own set of complicated problems (personal
communication, November 10, 1998).
In 1996 and 1998, there were campaigns that went against the grain and hosted
chat forums on the campaign website. Patrick Buchanan, a ’96 Republican
presidential primary contender, used a message board, and in 1998, as mentioned
above, Ventura and Humphrey had web boards. These shared similar features.
First, the posts consisted less of deliberative dialogue among users and more of
messages of encouragement to the candidate, exclamations of the “fact” that the
candidate was going to win, and narratives of why people supported the candidate.
Second, all three campaigns had a trusted volunteer respond to and monitor posts
to the site. Ventura’s web creator, Phil Madsen, said that he and a volunteer deleted
posts that referenced pornography sites or directed people to them, or that
commented on Ventura’s former professional wrestling career. Madsen felt those
kind of posts were inappropriate to the list (personal communication, December
17, 1998). Tim Johnson, Humphrey’s campaign manager, said a trusted volunteer
removed “inappropriate messages” and responded to questions posted on the
bulletin board that were directed to the campaign (personal communication,
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On-Line Interaction
November 7, 1998). On the Buchanan site, Linda Muller, the volunteer who created
the website and who updated the web board, made editorial comments or clarified
Buchanan’s issue positions in messages she posted.
For most political candidates, however, a chat forum is not a feasible option.
Segal explained that a website, just like a television advertisement, is a persuasive
message (or series of persuasive messages) encouraging people to vote for the
candidate (personal communication, October 1997). Creating an opportunity for
people to post their opinions and take issue with a candidate’s policy initiatives
on the site entails the possibility that potential voters visiting it will be turned
away by the criticism. Most candidates do not see a web board or chat forum as
being worth that risk.
Loss of Ambiguity
The second risk candidates take by having interactive forums on a website is a
loss of ambiguity. If we assume that it is the case that the primary goal of a
candidate is to win the election and to do so she or he must gain a majority of the
votes, then the result is that the candidates “becloud their policies in a fog of
ambiguity” (Downs, 1957, p. 136). Downs explains the rationale for offering
ambiguous policy statements: “Not only can voters differently weight individual
policies, they can also interpret the meaning of each policy differently—each
seeing it in a light which brings it as close as possible to his own position” (p.
136). Page (1978) explains that candidates often do not discuss specific policies.
Instead, they talk about “goals, problems, and past performance” (p. 192).
Candidates spend much time talking about the past and “visions of the glorious
society” of the future (p. 192). The reason for policy vagueness, he argues, is that
citizens may disagree, for example, on the specifics of how to reduce drug use in
this country, but generally they agree that illegal drug use should be curtailed.
Page explains, “Candidates need not fear that they will offend anyone by coming
out clearly in favor of peace and prosperity” (p. 193). Indeed, candidates walk a
thin line. If they offer no plans, which happened to Dole in his Republican
nomination bid in 1980, then they are cast as not having vision (Cramer, 1992). If
they offer too many details, then the media and the citizens fixate on the feasibility
and consequences of the plans, certain segments of the voting population are
turned off, and votes are lost.
The website gives candidates a place to detail their plans, but because they
control the information on-line, they can decide how much detail is sufficient. An
interactive forum such as a public bulletin board could create an environment in
which people would ask specific questions of the candidate or make comments
criticizing a position or action. The Buchanan website offers a useful example of
this problem. Interestingly no one asked critical questions of Buchanan’s stance.
Instead, rhetorical questions, clearly leaning towards Buchanan, were offered,
such as this one:
From HN in California:
Must IMMEDIATELY close the borders and DEPORT ALL illegal aliens. California
is “defacto Mexico” right now unless the above is done—I’ve studied the issue
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very closely. Our nation is in grave danger of ceasing to be the U.S, as we
know it!!!! And what makes this problem all the more grave is that our own
government is working against the citizens to resolve the issue to preserve the
nation! Doesn’t anyone care? Don’t the officials have kids and grandkids???? Is
this treason?
“Doesn’t anyone care?” and “Is this treason?” are less an attack on Buchanan and
more an attack on the current government in power. This kind of statement,
however, lies at the extreme of political thought. This kind of message posted to
a “Dole for President” website, for example, could prove difficult for a moderate
candidate. First, it would provoke those who disagree with the above statement to
send messages. The writers could either accuse Dole of supporting such a proposal,
if the person holds a moderate stance on immigration, or attack him for not
supporting such a proposal, if the person holds a radical stance. Moreover, this
kind of statement could force the candidate to explain more clearly his or her
position on illegal immigration, especially if the media monitored the website and
pressed the candidate on the subject. Immigration policies are contentious, and
the more clearly detailed a candidate is on the issue, the more likely the candidate
will appeal to one segment of the voting population, but be rejected by another.
Another problem that emerges in a public forum for the candidate is that the
candidate risks appearing to “waffle” (as Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau
characterized Bill Clinton) on policy issues in an attempt to please everybody all
the time. If a moderate voter posts a message on illegal immigration, and the
candidate or a staff member responds affirming that person’s opinion, but then
affirms a radical’s opinion, the candidate’s integrity and character will be questioned.
Page (1978) explains,
One of the most compelling reasons to expect inconsistency in policy stands is
given by the theory of differentiated appeals: that vote-seeking candidates will
tailor their stands to fit whatever audience they happen to be addressing.
There is, in fact, a great deal of truth to this prediction. Candidates are skilled
at pleasing special audiences. But they do so, for the most part, without violating
the rule of constancy, without creating flagrant contradictions in their policy
stands. (p. 143)
Although candidates normally do not violate the rules of constancy, they also do
not want to create an easy format in which the likelihood of violating the rules
increases. Furthermore, candidates cannot afford in the 3 months of the general
campaign season to battle the questions of character, integrity, or ability that might
arise if inconsistencies appeared. When so much of media coverage of campaigns
is focused on strategy (Jamieson, 1993), candidates need to close off every avenue
that might provoke more detrimental strategy coverage. Given the ability of the
press to monitor websites, it seems highly probable that such inconsistencies
would be watched closely.
A private, personal e-mail format could carry with it another set of problems. If
citizens can e-mail the candidate directly, as Arena explained, they will. The potential
deluge of e-mail messages could prove problematic when the candidate and staff
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cannot reply to each of the messages. If the campaign, however, found time to
respond, a difficulty emerges. How much detail does a campaign give to an answer?
What if the citizen is displeased and responds in kind, requesting more information?
In traditional letters, a system is in place to handle the influx of mail. Form letters
in most instances are sent out to citizens who express their opinions or concerns
on a given issue or event. Time is on a candidate’s side in print mail. By the time
the response letter is sent out, the issue may have already passed, or the concern
or anger that triggered the letter in the first place may have abated. On-line, time
shrinks. Citizens expect responses quickly and can respond to the campaign’s
response within minutes. This provokes an on-line, human interaction. Campaigns
argue that they have not the resources for such interaction. Even if they did, they
would face a most difficult problem of how to address every citizen’s concerns
without making them more disenchanted and less likely to vote.
Campaigns can never forget that they are in the media’s (and therefore, the
public’s) eye 24 hours a day. Campaigns are communication (Trent & Friedenberg,
1991). That communication must be guarded, crafted, and refined in order to meet
the objective of winning the election. In any public or private format, candidates
must worry about making impromptu remarks that are poorly thought out,
misconstrued by the listeners, and fanned to the public without a context for
understanding the comment. Any increased contact between a candidate and the
people, if not properly controlled, can lead to political disaster. Even though a
new medium presents itself to candidates to allow for more personal contact, it
goes against campaigning wisdom to do so in all but extreme cases.7
Conclusions
The needs of the candidate and the contemporary political campaign in the United
States suggest that candidates, in exploring how to use the Internet, err on the side
of caution. The use to which they put websites is primarily to provide information
about the candidate—controlled, highly crafted information, similar to a campaign
brochure or a television advertisement. A second use is more novel: to provide a
façade of interaction with the campaign and the candidate through media interaction.
These components are being developed and utilized on campaign websites because
they pose little risk and seem to provide benefit. If citizens can donate money or
sign up to volunteer their time for the campaign, the campaign benefits from this
and presumably citizens have an increased opportunity to get involved. Moreover,
by providing television advertisements to view, creating downloadable bumper
stickers and screen savers, or setting up e-mail lists, the candidate provides
information and through these devices suggests that the candidate and the campaign
are open, accessible, and inclusive.
7
Buchanan’s and Ventura’s campaigns are cases in point. Both echoed populist rhetoric, which allowed
them to create a space for followers to voice their support. The bulletin board can serve as a rallying
place, a site to motivate and empower the candidate’s supporters, helping them to feel that they are
not alone in their support of Buchanan or Ventura.
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The real work of democracy, however, is not only in letting people donate
money or download screen savers onto a computer. The real work also is in
human-human interaction—whether it is mediated by a computer through a network
or mediated by the airwaves. This kind of interaction is the foundation for public
deliberation, which serves to identify problems, create policy, and determine how
to implement solutions. Although human interaction in and of itself is not public
deliberation, it is the foundation for it. If people cannot talk with each other or
with elites and politicians, then public deliberation cannot occur. A democratic
system in which campaigns close themselves off from engagement with citizens is
less democratic. The people do not have their opinions known or their agendas
identified. The power resides primarily in elites who already have their needs and
opinions known in the public sphere.
I have attempted to offer an initial explanation into why political campaigns do
not employ the human-interactive components of the Internet. Candidates’ staffs
believe that in order to win the election, they must appeal to a majority of people
by speaking on a couple salient issues, by creating and controlling the candidates’
image and issues, and by exploiting ambiguity. The web complicates the campaign
environment because the structure of the medium itself can allow for two-way
human-interaction. The one-way, top-down structure of the mass media is not the
structure of the Internet. Candidates, therefore, cannot hide behind the one-way
structure of earlier mass media.
If human interaction does not occur, it is because the candidate does not allow
it. The Internet, as a result, helps us see one of the fundamental problems of
representative democracy in practice: Campaigns are structured to craft an image
and a message that is palatable to a large enough majority for them to win the
election. Rob Arena underscored this point. Arena explained that candidates can
and should be interacting with people and listening to their opinions early in the
campaign. During the home stretch of a campaign, however, “the campaign and
candidate are responsible to lead,” Arena explained. They need to offer ideas for
voters to latch onto, but “the discourse surrounding those ideas belongs in other
forums,” not on a candidate’s website (personal communication, October 1997).
Political candidates’ websites must be viewed, then, as infomercials for the
candidate—extended advertisements that put the candidate in the best light in
order to win the most votes to lead the country, the state, or the city. The
technological capabilities of the Internet also make it possible for candidates to
put forward and debate policy positions. Indeed, Johnson, Humphrey’s campaign
manager, explained that the bulletin board was part of their message in that it
illustrated they were a campaign of substance (personal communication, November
7, 1998). The other candidates, however, did not use interactive features, because
they seem not to enhance their ability to get elected. The possibilities of citizens
engaging in discussion of any kind (deliberative or otherwise) with political
candidates on-line or with other citizens on a candidates’ website appear risky,
burdensome, and problematic.
Balance, however, must be struck between the needs of candidates and the
needs of democracy. If we are to move away from representation and towards
direct democracy or if our current representative structure is to be enhanced,
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On-Line Interaction
citizens must have the opportunity to have input in the agenda-setting and decisionmaking process. Genuine participation can be realized through the metaphorical
bridge the Internet can create between the citizen and the current and future
decision-makers of government because of its human-interactive possibilities. If
candidates only implement the media-interactive components, however, contrary
to the exclamations of both those who fear and those who hail the Internet,
nothing has changed.
Appendix
Candidates, Party, and Incumbency Status in Ten States Studied
State
Candidate
Party
Status
Arizona
Jane Hull*
Paul Johnson
Republican
Democrat
Incumbent
Challenger
California
Dan Lungren
Gray Davis
Republican
Democrat
No incumbent
Colorado
Bill Owens*
Gail Schoettler
Republican
Democrat
No incumbent
Florida
Jeb Bush
Buddy Mackay
Republican
Democrat
No incumbent
Illinois
George Ryan
Glenn Poshard
Republican
Democrat
No incumbent
Iowa
Jim Ross Lightfoot
Tom Vilsack
Republican
Democrat
No incumbent
Maryland
Ellen Sauerbrey
Parris Glendening
Republican
Democrat
Challenger
Incumbent
Minnesota
Norm Coleman
Hubert Humphrey III
Jesse Ventura
Republican
Democrat
Reform
No incumbent
Oregon
Bill Sizemore
John Kitzhaber
Republican
Democrat
Challenger
Incumbent
Texas
George W. Bush
Garry Mauro
Republican
Democrat
Incumbent
Challenger
*Candidate did not have a campaign website.
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Journal of Communication, Autumn 2000
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