Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM

Faculty Book Examines Digital Communication Technologies in Presidential Campaigns

Monday, January 27, 2014, By Diane Stirling
Share
School of Information Studies

Heavy use of the Internet and digital communications technologies in recent American presidential campaigns may make it seem that the Internet Age has had a democratizing effect on those efforts.

Jennifer Stromer-Galley

Jennifer Stromer-Galley

That notion is disputed by School of Information Studies Associate Professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley, however, who examines the issue in her just-published book, “Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age.”

“Bob Dole’s web site, way back over a decade ago, suggested that political campaigns are not interested in using the full affordances of the Internet for campaigning. Instead, they’re looking to use the Internet to raise money and find supporters, and to try to energize those supporters to become more active in the campaign. But more genuine involvement through message boards, or online forums of any sort, just were not used, even though the technology was widely available,” Stomer-Galley observes.

The author has based her assessments on data collected from the last five presidential campaigns, plus interviews she conducted with various campaign staff members.

“Campaigns try to find best applications and platforms to touch the most numbers of supporters to get them to give money or create support–so all their choices are around fundraising and mobilizing,” she says. “The efforts on the part of ordinary citizens to inject their opinions on how campaigns should be run, or what the policies of the candidates should be, those channels don’t exist. So campaigns are using the networks to win, but not to genuinely interact.”

Given a political campaign’s express purpose and limited focus, however, a dollars-and-votes orientation makes sense, according to the author. “I tried hard in this book not to cast campaigns as bad guys, but rather, I hope to demystify or help people understand what the purpose of political campaigns are. What they are doing with social media and web properties is toward very particular goals—[just] not the larger, more hopeful, utopian goal” of involving citizens in the campaigns, she adds.

Stromer-Galley says she also wanted the book to convey the history of online political campaigns. The practices used by Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and others were digitally innovative, even though the Obama and Dean presidential runs receive the most notoriety for that capability, she notes. “There were other candidates [who] were involved in some pretty interesting experiments; who did some really unique things that are the precursors to what we do today. Many of the campaigns were innovating, not just the ones we hear about the most.”

In the mass-media era of the past, political campaigns had limited abilities to test variations of a candidate’s messaging, she says. Today, digital communication technologies make it much easier to do that through emails and other tactics. Consequently, Stromer-Galley sees “only more of the same” for the future.

In addition, because today’s digital environment offers an increased ability to assess, fine tune and leverage audience data, the practice of placing mass-media messaging based on data analysis and watcher profiles is also likely to continue. Collecting and analyzing “super data analytics” allows campaigns to choose which TV channels and programs can deliver audiences of “persuadables”–people who might be encouraged to learn toward a particular candidate, she added.

The idea for the book dates back to the author’s 1995 master’s thesis. That is when she “became really excited by the potential of the technologies and communication channels of the Internet to flatten hierarchies and engage people to communicate and organize through the Internet,” Stromer-Galley says.

It is available as part of Studies in Digital Politics series at Oxford University Press. More information about the book and her research can be found on the author’s website.

  • Author

Diane Stirling

  • Recent
  • Doctoral Candidate Wins Grant for Research on Infrastructure, Violence and Resistance in Pakistan
    Friday, August 1, 2025, By News Staff
  • Co-President of Disability Law Society Eyes Career in National Security Law in Washington
    Thursday, July 31, 2025, By Jordan Bruenger
  • Lender Center New York Event Gathers Wealth Gap Experts
    Wednesday, July 30, 2025, By Diane Stirling
  • After Tragedy, Newhouse Grad Rediscovers Her Voice Through Podcasting
    Wednesday, July 30, 2025, By Chris Velardi
  • Back-to-School Shopping: More Expensive and Less Variety of Back-to-School Items
    Tuesday, July 29, 2025, By Daryl Lovell

More In STEM

New Study Reveals Ozone’s Hidden Toll on America’s Trees

A new nationwide study reveals that ozone pollution—an invisible threat in the air—may be quietly reducing the survival chances of many tree species across the United States. The research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres is the first…

Inspiring the Next Generation of STEM Enthusiasts

A friendly competition is brewing in the corner of a basement classroom in Link Hall during the annual STEM Trekkers summer program, where students are participating in a time-honored ritual: seeing who can build a paper airplane that travels the…

5 Surprisingly Simple Ways to Use Generative Artificial Intelligence at Work

Not too long ago, generative artificial intelligence (AI) might’ve sounded like something out of a sci-fi movie. Now it’s here, and it’s ready to help you write emails, schedule meetings and even create presentations. In a recent Information Technology Services…

NSF I-Corps Semiconductor and Microelectronics Free Virtual Course Being Offered

University researchers with groundbreaking ideas in semiconductors, microelectronics or advanced materials are invited to apply for an entrepreneurship-focused hybrid course offered through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program. The free virtual course runs from Sept. 15 through…

Jianshun ‘Jensen’ Zhang Named Interim Department Chair of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) is excited to announce that Professor Jianshun “Jensen” Zhang has been appointed interim department chair of mechanical and aerospace engineering (MAE), as of July 1, 2025. Zhang serves as executive director of…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.