Tomorrow afternoon, IPDI will release our latest research, Poli-fluentials: The New Political Kingmakers, spearheaded by Carol Darr at the National Press Club’s First Amendment Lounge (13^th Floor, 529 14^th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20045) from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m.

The report looks at the online activism and medium consumption habits of Poli-fluentials, the people most likely to volunteer, donate, promote candidates and join causes by word-of-mouth advocacy and over the Internet.

Check out the publication at http://www.ipdi.org/Publications/default.aspx.

Register for the event by emailing ipdi@ipdi.org.

On Tuesday, May 1, 2007, IPDI and The International Republican Institute are hosting a conference on how the concept of influentials operates in developing democracies and what international assistance can do to help strengthen the skills of pro-democratic voices around the world.

IPDI looked at the concept of influentials, which was developed by Roper/NOP World based on decades of consumer research, in a 2004 publication titled Political Influentials Online in the 2004 Campaign.

Speaker include F. Christopher Arterton (Dean of GW’s Graduate School of Political Management), Lorne W. Craner (President, IRI), Gretchen Birkle (Director, Women’s Democracy Network, IRI), Julija Belej (Deputy Director for Iraq, Middle East and North Africa Program, IRI), Henry Farrell (Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs), Thomas E. Garrett (Regional Program Director, Middle East and North Africa, IRI), Dara Francis (Program Officer, Africa Program, IRI), Gina M. S. Lambright (Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs), Carol C. Darr (Director, IPDI), David Williams (President, David Williams and Associates), Georges A. Fauriol (Senior Vice President, IRI).

Check out the agenda here. RSVP is required for this event. RSVP to cbuerger@iri.org.

Before you come, read the working paper, Strengthening Democracy Worldwide: Analyzing the role of influentials.

Welcome to IPDI Blog, the official blog of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet (IPDI) at The George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management. Our mission is to promote the use of the Internet and new communication technologies in politics to enhance democratic values, encourage citizen participation and improve governance, at home and abroad; in short, to “democratize democracy.”

This blog contains some of the applications, strategies, people and ideas we encounter daily — all the cool things that we poke into the next office to tell each other but that we often file away for one of our publications or events.

Blogs play a big part in our lives. In fact, our director, Carol Darr, appeared on CBS Sunday Morning on July 9th to discuss the influential nature of political blog readers.

“Most of the people who read blogs — they are highly educated. They are middle aged. And they are high income,” says Carol Darr, the director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University.

“Cause the people who are reading blogs tend to be opinion leaders and they tend to be trendsetters. So they are influential far out of proportion to what their numbers are,” Darr says.

For more information about the Institute’s reseach on the online political community, check out Political Influentials Online in the 2004 Campaign and Small Donors and Online Giving.