Friday, October 20, 2006
Riverside (CA) to adopt free wireless for residents
In a story this morning, the Los Angeles Times notes that Riverside (CA) has inked a deal with AT&T to provide free wireless access to city residents. The story gives a bit of detail: "Riverside is the latest city — others include Philadelphia and Anaheim — to embrace a nationwide trend of creating citywide wireless internet access for residents and businesses. Many cities charge users monthly fees to go online, with free access only in isolated hotspots, but Riverside residents will be offered unlimited broadband Internet access at no cost."
The deal will start with a 2-square mile test area, and by 2008 there should be a network covering 55 square miles. This will cost AT&T $8.8 million dollars.
The deal will start with a 2-square mile test area, and by 2008 there should be a network covering 55 square miles. This will cost AT&T $8.8 million dollars.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
"Blogging the 5th District"
There was a fun story in a recent issue of the Long Beach Press-Telegram on how Long Beach City Councilwoman, Gerrie Schipske, is using a blog to keep her constituents informed about her work for the City. Her blog is at http://district5journal.blogspot.com. The story quotes Shipske as saying that a blog "is one additional way to communicate to constituents. And it's absolutely free. We should take advantage of that."
I agree, and as the reporter noted: "Experts say blogging has become a popular tool among politicians because it's cheap, easy to start and reaches a wide audience."
But as I pointed out in a quote in the story, it is quite unusual to see a city councilwoman, even in a city as large as Long Beach, with a blog!
I agree, and as the reporter noted: "Experts say blogging has become a popular tool among politicians because it's cheap, easy to start and reaches a wide audience."
But as I pointed out in a quote in the story, it is quite unusual to see a city councilwoman, even in a city as large as Long Beach, with a blog!
Email as a voter contact method
There is some new survey data out from Pew, and the new survey contains an interesting set of questions about candidate and political group contact methods. The survey asked:
Among registered voters, 38% said they had been contacted over the phone, 14% by someone coming to their door, and 15% by email. I don't know of any past surveys using this same question on email contact, but given that roughly the same number of registered voters reported email contact as reported traditional contact in person, this is quite interesting data.
Of course, it is also the case that we are still a few weeks from the November election, and we are only now entering the period when parties, groups and candidates will be maximizing their traditional, in-person, get-out-the-vote efforts.
(BTW, I blogged about some of the other results in this recent Pew survey on electronic voting on Election Updates.)
Here are a few ways that candidates and political groups contact voters to encourage them to vote a particular way. Thinking about the past few months, have you been contacted [METHOD] by any candidats or political groups? Have you been contacted [NEXT ITEM]?
Among registered voters, 38% said they had been contacted over the phone, 14% by someone coming to their door, and 15% by email. I don't know of any past surveys using this same question on email contact, but given that roughly the same number of registered voters reported email contact as reported traditional contact in person, this is quite interesting data.
Of course, it is also the case that we are still a few weeks from the November election, and we are only now entering the period when parties, groups and candidates will be maximizing their traditional, in-person, get-out-the-vote efforts.
(BTW, I blogged about some of the other results in this recent Pew survey on electronic voting on Election Updates.)
More on politics and YouTube
Does the success of YouTube represent the "triumph of bottom-up culture and another sign that old media businesses, from record companies and TV networks to newspapers like The Times, are going to see more of their audience migrating to the Internet", as claimed this morning by Patrick Goldstein in the Los Angeles Times?
As Goldstein wrote:
At this point it is not entirely clear that YouTube itself has altered how candidates are marketed to voters, but it does represent a phenomenon of potential voter empowerment.
There are many things standing in the way of realizing this potential. For one, YouTube is not necessarily easy to use: even over a university Internet connection like I have, downloading even relatively short video clips can take some time, and can try one's patience. Also, searching and navigation of the video clips, for someone who might be interested in only certain races or candidates, is far from straightforward: simple searches for prominent candidates yield a lot of content that has little to do with politics (search for Governor Schwarzenegger, for example --- a lot of the non-political content is funny, but is non-political), and quite frankly, watching much of the content reminds me of those long Saturday evenings when I was a kid watching my neighbor's slide shows of their RV trip to South Dakota.
Finally, it's hard to know the credibility of much of the political material. Some of it is clearly intended to be funny (though even then much of it falls short), but of the other material, it is hard to know whether it is credible and whether it presents the full picture of a candidate or campaign. Here I'm thinking of short clips for candidate press conferences, or other types of short, and heavily edited, political material that might be significantly distorted from the original context and thus not necessarily very informative for the electorate.
Yet, YouTube is a phenomenon. But it is far from an ideal way to empower voters, at least as it currently stands, in terms of technological and content development.
As Goldstein wrote:
YouTube is already having an impact on this year's election cycle. In years past, political candidates were sold essentially in the same way as movie stars — in carefully staged settings and market-tested ads. Now the scripted veneer has been stripped away by young volunteers, armed with video cameras, who stalk opposition candidates, record their gaffes and post them on YouTube, not unlike the way the Smoking Gun displays embarrassing photos of badly behaved celebrities.
The best-known gotcha YouTube post came from an Indian American student tailing U.S. Sen. George Allen (R-Va.). The student recently captured an irritated Allen pointing him out and telling his supporters, "Let's give a welcome to macaca here — welcome to America." The slur prompted a tsunami of media coverage that sent Allen's campaign into a tailspin. Another popular series of clips shows U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) on the campaign trail, joshing about his Guatemalan gardener and struggling to stay awake during a Senate hearing.
At this point it is not entirely clear that YouTube itself has altered how candidates are marketed to voters, but it does represent a phenomenon of potential voter empowerment.
There are many things standing in the way of realizing this potential. For one, YouTube is not necessarily easy to use: even over a university Internet connection like I have, downloading even relatively short video clips can take some time, and can try one's patience. Also, searching and navigation of the video clips, for someone who might be interested in only certain races or candidates, is far from straightforward: simple searches for prominent candidates yield a lot of content that has little to do with politics (search for Governor Schwarzenegger, for example --- a lot of the non-political content is funny, but is non-political), and quite frankly, watching much of the content reminds me of those long Saturday evenings when I was a kid watching my neighbor's slide shows of their RV trip to South Dakota.
Finally, it's hard to know the credibility of much of the political material. Some of it is clearly intended to be funny (though even then much of it falls short), but of the other material, it is hard to know whether it is credible and whether it presents the full picture of a candidate or campaign. Here I'm thinking of short clips for candidate press conferences, or other types of short, and heavily edited, political material that might be significantly distorted from the original context and thus not necessarily very informative for the electorate.
Yet, YouTube is a phenomenon. But it is far from an ideal way to empower voters, at least as it currently stands, in terms of technological and content development.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Internet changing petition politics worldwide
There's an article in the Times of India, "Interent reinvents politics of petitions." The article argues that from West Virginia to India, the Internet is changing how petitions are being circulated and publicized. Interestingly, the story mentions two petition-collection websites (petitiononline.com and petitionthem.com) that are worth checking out.
Next question: will websites like these be used in the near future for collecting signatures for initiatives, referendum and recalls in American states that have relatively frequent use of these instruments of direct democracy (like California)? Proponents of ballot measures do use the Internet to get the word out, and to distribute petitions. But I'm not aware of any American states or lower-level election jurisdictions that currently allow the return of signed electronic ballot measure petitions. (Of course if readers have information to the contrary, please send it along and I'll post it here).
Next question: will websites like these be used in the near future for collecting signatures for initiatives, referendum and recalls in American states that have relatively frequent use of these instruments of direct democracy (like California)? Proponents of ballot measures do use the Internet to get the word out, and to distribute petitions. But I'm not aware of any American states or lower-level election jurisdictions that currently allow the return of signed electronic ballot measure petitions. (Of course if readers have information to the contrary, please send it along and I'll post it here).
Statewide voter registration systems need overhaul
There is a great extended interview in the MIT Technology Review this morning, where colleague Thad Hall discusses the problems with the existing technology in the US for statewide voter registration databases, and in which he talks about the future of these systems. A link to the story is on Election Updates.
Recently, the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project hosted an interesting conference on voter registration and voter identification. There was a brief presentation at that conference by Stephen Ansolabehere (a political scientist at MIT), in which he noted that the new statewide voter registration databases would be "dynamite" for political campaigns --- and that they will open the doors for all sorts of new political communications strategies. Exactly how they will be used, of course, is not clear --- but given the highly competitive nature of American politics today, no doubt campaign managers and consultants are today devising new ways to use these developing databases. (Here's another link to Election Updates, where I briefly described Ansolabehere's presentation).
Recently, the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project hosted an interesting conference on voter registration and voter identification. There was a brief presentation at that conference by Stephen Ansolabehere (a political scientist at MIT), in which he noted that the new statewide voter registration databases would be "dynamite" for political campaigns --- and that they will open the doors for all sorts of new political communications strategies. Exactly how they will be used, of course, is not clear --- but given the highly competitive nature of American politics today, no doubt campaign managers and consultants are today devising new ways to use these developing databases. (Here's another link to Election Updates, where I briefly described Ansolabehere's presentation).
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Call for papers, "Technology and Campaigns"
The following call for papers might be of interest to readers of "Politics and Technology":
mailto:costas@post.harvard.edu
CALL for PAPERS
Social Science Computer Review
*Special Issue*
"Technology and Campaigns"
Special Issue Editor: Costas Panagopoulos
Technology will be featured in the 2006 election U.S. cycle in prominent and unprecedented ways. Campaigns will capitalize on advancements in technology to inform target and mobilize voters. This special issue will explore the impact of innovative uses of technology for electioneering purposes. It will also consider the effects of political blogs, email and text-based mobilization efforts, developments in electronic voting, survey research and database management for campaigns. This is an intriguing area of inquiry for scholars who explore the linkages between technology and elections. The issue will be a collection of high-quality scholarship from a variety of related disciplines including political science, computer science, sociology, psychology, and economics.
Proposals for submissions will be due September 15, 2006. Proposals should be no longer than one page in length and include a tentative title, abstract and a brief explanation of what is new and interesting about the proposed work. Submission of the full manuscript for accepted projects will be due on March 1, 2007. Manuscripts will be double-blind reviewed, and authors will be notified about the decision by April 1, 2007. Revised manuscripts will be due by May 30, 2007. Authors are invited to review formatting and style details on the SSCORE website for direction. Please email proposals as .pdf documents to costas@post.harvard.edu with the following included in the subject line: SSCORE Proposal.
Politicians and "Internet candid cameras"
The Washington Post has a very good story this morning on the use of websites like YouTube.com by political campaigns throughout the United States.
It goes without saying that this is an area that has seen very little systematic study by those who research elections and political communications --- what campaigns use this technology? Are they effective in distributing information about candidates? What are the attributes of the views of these sites, and what are the attributes of the voters who view the materials on sites like YouTube.com? In short, there is virtually no systematic research at this point in time regarding the influence of this new use of Internet technology in political campaigns in the US (or abroad -- see my post a few minutes about about how YouTube.com is being used in a Mexican gubernatorial election).
It goes without saying that this is an area that has seen very little systematic study by those who research elections and political communications --- what campaigns use this technology? Are they effective in distributing information about candidates? What are the attributes of the views of these sites, and what are the attributes of the voters who view the materials on sites like YouTube.com? In short, there is virtually no systematic research at this point in time regarding the influence of this new use of Internet technology in political campaigns in the US (or abroad -- see my post a few minutes about about how YouTube.com is being used in a Mexican gubernatorial election).
YouTube.com used in Mexican gubernatorial election
I ran across this short but interesting snip in the Los Angeles Times this morning about how YouTube.com is being used in the Mexican gubernatorial election in Tabasco:
Ojeda supporters posted a video on YouTube.com that shows a warehouse with hundreds of new bikes that they allege the PRI had planned to give to voters. The video, indexed under "mapacheo," slang for vote-buying, shows the warehouse being emptied within minutes by passersby after its discovery by Ojeda campaigners.
