E-Constituent Relationship Models for State Legislators

This white paper is about something called Constituent Relationship Management (CRM), developing a constituent- focused philosophy in state legislatures that helps elected officials use technology to manage constituent correspondence and requests in a responsive, efficient, and effective way.

March 2008 Politics and Technology Review

The March 2008 edition of IPDI’s semi-annual online journal of research, commentary, and analysis on technology and politics. In this issue, David Faris looks the way citizens used social networking sites and mobile phones to spread political rumors in Egypt. James Valentine questions whether the wisdom of crowds can produce creative thought. Lowell Feld analyzes the online Draft Jim Webb movement in 2006. In our research section, Dave Karpf measures influence in the political blogosphere, while Christine Williams and Girish Gulati look at the political impact of Facebook on the 2006 elections and the 2008 presidential race.

Best Practices for Political Advertising Online

A study of paid political online advertising, from search engine marketing to display advertising, designed to help political organizations understand online advertising and better leverage their resources to reach voters online.

Poli-fluentials: The New Political Kingmakers

New research from the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet illuminates the characteristics, media consumption habits and online activities of the people most likely to volunteer, donate and promote candidates and causes in the 2008 election. Using questionnaires completed by almost 10,000 registered voters, Poli-fluentials: The New Political Kingmakers sheds new light on the American adults who will play – and, indeed, are already playing – an outsized role in the upcoming campaigns.

Authors: Carol Darr (GWU and Harvard), Julie Barko Germany (IPDI), Amy Gershkoff and Hal Malchow (MSHC Partners), Alan Rosenblatt (Center for American Progress), Jordan Shlacter (Yahoo! Media Sales Research), and Doris Spielthenner, Neal Gorenflo and Harald Katzmair (FAS.Research).

Politics Online Conference Magazine 2007

Couldn't attend the conference this year? Want a sneak peek of next year's conference? Take a look inside our 2007 Conference Magazine for cutting edge essays, speaker bios, and more.

Constituent Relationship Management: The New Little Black Book in Politics

Sure, data is nice to have around. It's valuable. It gives you credibility. The more you have of it, the more people gossip about you. But stockpiling data won't get you anywhere – unless, of course, you know how to use it to develop and sustain relationships with voters and constituents. Relationship management wasn't designed to waste your time. Rather, it was developed to make the business of politics more efficient and more effective. In other words, it has the potential to save you money and make you more friends – if you're a political campaign, advocacy group, nonprofit, or elected official.

The Audience for Political Blogs: New Research on Blog Readership

What does the average blog reader look like? More importantly what else is he or she reading?

IPDI's latest research looks at heavy blog readers, a group of people everyone talks about but which we really know little about. Tracking down blog readers with surveys can be difficult and expensive, so most of what we know is a collection of anecdotes and experience.

Person-to-Person-to-Person: Harnessing the Political Power of Online Social Networks and User Generated Content

What's a campaign, non-profit, or advocacy group to do when the public wants individualized, interactive, on-demand content thisveryminute? The good news is that the tools for building active social networks already exist.  They are surprisingly affordable, and they seem to work well for both national movements and small, local campaigns. Person-to-Person-to-Person takes what you already know about human nature and incorporates the concepts in an affordable, tangible way into strategy. 

2006 Politics Online Conference Magazine

The 2006 Politics Online Conference was our most successful yet. We had 20 panels featuring over 80 speakers, on a wide range of topics, from database management to text messaging to getting out your message via Influentials on the web. To see who was speaking, or to read the essays our speakers and staff wrote for the magazine, click on the link below.

Small Donors and Online Giving

The 2004 election was a watershed in presidential campaign fundraising under a landmark new regulatory regime. And the Internet continued its emergence as a vehicle for political campaigns to inform, organize and raise money. No one knew what the results of these changes and the surge in political giving would herald for the election. This report offers a first picture of small and online political donors, of which we knew very little.

The Politics-to-Go Handbook: A Guide to Using Mobile Technology in Politics

This handbook introduces some of the latest mobile technologies, examines their current uses and political successes, considers future possibilities and challenges and offers simple how-to guides for implementing these new technologies into campaigns. The publication features ten diverse chapters of forward-thinking articles and practical guides written by 50 expert authors, totaling 131 pages of informative reading that will help you take your next campaign to the next level. The executive summary and table of contents is available as an Adobe PDF document, and as a podcast (.MP3 format, runs 30:54, 10 MB).

Under the Radar & Over the Top: Online Political Videos in the 2004 Election

A study of the independently-produced political videos that were circulated on the Internet during the final weeks of the 2004 Presidential campaign. These videos tended to be far more mean-spirited and partisan than the two most popular videos of the genre, JibJab’s “This Land is Your Land” and “Good to Be in DC,” which were shown on national television broadcasts and viewed by tens of millions of people. The study found that these amateur videos were spread by e-mail and posted on political blogs, giving them an underground currency that is larger than generally recognized. Because this activity occurs out of view of the political press, this new and growing phenomenon has largely escaped the media’s attention.

Click here to see our library of videos

Pioneers in Online Politics: Nonpartisan Political Web Sites in the 2000 Campaign

During the 2000 election, political information Web sites such as Voter.com, Freedom Channel and DebateAmerica were heralded as the new way to engage Americans in politics. Then the dot-com crash occurred, and many of them closed their cyber-doors permanently. What happened? Pioneers in Online Politics looks at the collapse of online politics after the 2000 election and suggests a new roadmap for providers of political information online.

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Nonpartisan Poltical Web Sites: Best Practices Primer

Nonpartisan political Web sites have a mixed track record. Many of the innovations launched during the 2000 election have since disappeared. However, the online political community is enormous and growing, creating great opportunities for effective nonpartisan political Web sites during the 2004 election and beyond. This primer puts forth a series of recommendations and best practices designed to revive political information Web sites now and in the future.

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Putting Online Influentials to Work for Your Campaign

Putting Online Influentials to Work for Your Campaign describes the techniques that the Bush campaign and others have adopted to take advantage of the unique characteristics of online political Influentials--their persuasive ability, their political activism and their large social networks.

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The Political Consultants' Online Fundraising Primer

The success of the 2004 presidential candidates has spurred a revolution in Internet-based fundraising. By introducing an alternative model for raising money that is quick, cheap and easy, the Internet has increased the pool of small donors and holds the promise of lessening candidates' reliance on large contributors. This primer, designed for campaigns, nonprofits and issue advocacy groups, explains how they did it.

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Online Campaigning 2002: A Primer

By the end of 2001, 72.3 percent of Americans (approximately 200 million people) were going online. That simple fact makes an Internet strategy imperative for political campaigners seeking elective office in the United States. But a good Internet strategy is no simple matter. This Primer will help you, the political campaigner, create, execute and fine-tine an Internet strategy.

Privacy, Security and Trust on the Political Web

While the use of the Internet for political communications is beginning to succeed at engaging individuals in our democracy, online campaigners need to focus on ways to foster and sustain the trust of potential supporters online. Using banner ads, the survey attracted 9,705 users of the Microsoft Network (MSN) for this study examining the willingness of Internet users to provide e-mail addresses and credit card numbers to political Web sites. The ensuing report describes the survey in detail and offers ideas on how online campaigners can hone their operations to increase the number of individuals who are willing to engage in these essential transactions of the Political Web.

Untuned Keyboards

Campaigners have always tried to reach voters in order to win elections. Citizens have always tried to read campaigns in order to vote their interests. The Internet seems to offer a great two-way conduit for campaigners and citizens, with plenty of room for third parties to provide context and commentary as well. Some are making good on the vision of a lively online political discourse pegged to elections. This report examines the phenomenon of online politics from three perspectives.

The Net and the Nomination

With more than 55 percent of Americans now using the Internet regularly, and nearly 70 percent with ready access, there is little question that your campaign must have a comprehensive strategy for harnessing this powerful medium. The Internet can host everything from a face-to-face conversation to a global television broadcast, and do it on the cheap. The most fundamental lesson we offer is that getting the political utmost out of the Internet requires that strategy dictate the use of technology.

The Virtual Trail

Changing technology has long shaped American journalism—from the telegraph to the telephone to the television. A new command of information born of the Internet is the dominant theme we found in interviews with political journalists for this report. Whether it is the flow of political news, the latest polls or the conflicting comments of a candidate, information is now one click away.

The Civic Web: Online Politics and Democratic Values

Political Web sites and e-mail lists were novelties in 1996. By 2000, they were a news trend. By 2004, they will be a part of every electoral and policy campaign. News-seekers, activists and decision makers increasingly turn to the Net as a matter of course.

Privacy and Online Politics

Why, the question arises, is privacy important, political privacy in particular? Is Online profiling doing more harm than good for citizens in our political system? While there are a range of answers given to these questions, most would probably agree: Without political privacy—namely the kind of privacy related to our efforts to formulate political beliefs—we are not free both to develop controversial political beliefs and to act on them in the public sphere.

Post Election 2000 Survey on Internet Use for Civics and Politics

This December 2000 nationwide survey revels that 35 percent of Americans use the Internet for information about politics, campaigns or issues in the news, up from 25 percent in 1998.

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Digital Snapshot

A Democracy Online Project survey reveals that professional observers of both the Internet and politics remain unimpressed with political candidates’ use of Web technology in the 2000 campaign.

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Characteristics of 1998 Campaign Web Sites

The Democracy Online Project conducted a content analysis of 161 Senate, House and gubernatorial campaign sites in 1998. The bottom line: Campaign sites varied greatly in their quality and content.

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Democracy Online Survey

This Democracy Online Project national survey of 1,200 Internet users found that online Americans are interested in finding information on the Internet about candidates at all levels and that they want more information on the Internet about candidate’s issue positions and voting records.

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