This book offers an in-depth, comparative analysis of how interactive Web 2.0 online tools, including weblogs, social networking sites and file-sharing sites, are utilised by candidates and parties during three recent election campaigns in France, Belgium, the US and the UK.

These approximately 450 articles explore all topics relevant to American political campaigns, elections and electoral behaviour including some cross-cultural comparisons to help place American trends in a global context.

In this multidisciplinary book, experts from around the globe examine how data-driven political campaigning works, what challenges it poses for personal privacy and democracy, and how emerging practices should be regulated. The rise of big data analytics in the political process has triggered official investigations in many countries around the world, and become the subject of broad and intense debate. Political parties increasingly rely on data analytics to profile the electorate and to target specific voter groups with individualised messages based on their demographic attributes. Political micro-targeting has become a major factor in modern campaigning, because of its potential to influence opinions, to mobilise supporters and to get out votes. The book explores the legal, philosophical and political dimensions of big data analytics in the electoral process. It demonstrates that the unregulated use of big personal data for political purposes not only infringes voters’ privacy rights, but also has the potential to jeopardise the future of the democratic process, and proposes reforms to address the key regulatory and ethical questions arising from the mining, use and storage of massive amounts of voter data. Providing an interdisciplinary assessment of the use and regulation of big data in the political process, this book will appeal to scholars from law, political science, political philosophy and media studies, policy makers and anyone who cares about democracy in the age of data-driven political campaigning.

This book investigates how institutional differences, such as the roles of political parties and the regulation of electoral systems, affect the development of Internet election campaigns in the U.S., Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. It examines whether or not the “Americanization of elections” is evident in East Asian democracies. While Japan is a parliamentary system, the U.S. and Korea are presidential systems and Taiwan is a semi-presidential system that has a president along with a parliamentary system. Furthermore, the role of the presidency in the U.S., Korea, and Taiwan is quite different. Taking these variations in political systems into consideration, the authors discuss how the electoral systems are regulated in relation to issues such as paid advertisements and campaign periods. They argue that stronger regulation of election systems and shorter election periods in Japan characterize Japanese uniqueness compared with the U.S., Korea, and Taiwan in terms of Internet election campaigns.

The eighth edition of Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices provides a clear understanding of the strategic decisions made and tactical communication practices used in contemporary political campaigns. The authors: incorporate examples from all levels—local, statewide, and national—to illustrate the communicative choices confronted in contemporary political campaigns, discuss all aspects of campaign communication, from buttons and yard-signs to the rapid expansion in use of social media, and draw on a wealth of communication theories to clearly explain contemporary principles and practices such as functions, stages, communicative styles, public speaking, debates, interpersonal communication, political advertising, and the use of new communication technologies. Updated to reflect practices in the 2012 presidential campaign as well as the local, state, and congressional campaigns of 2014, Political Campaign Communication continues to be a classroom favorite—an insightful, thoroughly researched, and reader-friendly text.

Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practice, Ninth Edition uses a speech-communication perspective to examine how elective politics contributes to our knowledge and understanding of the electoral process. Through historical and contemporary examples, this book offers readers a realistic understanding of the strategic and tactical communication choices candidates and their managers make as they wage the campaign. Updates to The Ninth Edition Include: Two completely new chapters – Chapter 6 and Chapter 13 – discuss ethical considerations of political campaign communication and the practice of contemporary journalism in today’s campaigns. Political campaign communication from the ground-breaking 2016 presidential election. Expanded material on use and tactics of social media, new platforms and communication technologies. One of the most comprehensive and consistently updated volumes available on the subject, the ninth edition of Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practice traces political communication from its roots in public speeches and campaign whistle-stops to the current explosion of information in the viral hothouse of social media, making it essential reading for students in communication and political science courses.

Technology and the Internet especially have brought on major changes to politics and are playing an increasingly important role in political campaigns, communications, and messaging. Political Campaigning in the Information Age increases our understanding of aspects and methods for political campaigning, messaging, and communications in the information age. Each chapter analyzes political campaigning, its methods, the effectiveness of these methods, and tools for analyzing these methods. This book will aid political operatives in increasing the effectiveness of political campaigns and communications and will be of use to researchers, political campaign staff, politicians and their staff, political and public policy analysts, political scientists, engineers, computer scientists, journalists, academicians, students, and professionals.

Challenging the often-hyperbolic claims that have been made around the use of data in election campaigns for voter manipulation and suppression, this book provides unrivalled evidence of how parties actually behave. It shows that data-driven campaigning practice is not inherently problematic or new, but neither is it uniform, rather systemic, regulatory and party level factors affecting the nature of campaigning. Providing detailed empirical examples from Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK and US, this book shows how parties campaign and explains why parties differ, thereby resetting prevailing understanding of the role of data in campaigns.

Presents a complete reference guide to American political parties and elections, including an A-Z listing of presidential elections with terms, people and events involved in the process.

The Internet first played a minor role in the 1992 U.S. Presidential election, and has gradually increased in importance so that it is central to election campaign strategy. However, election campaigners have, until very recently, focused on Web 1.0: websites and email. Political Campaigning, Elections and the Internet contextualises the US Presidential campaign of 2008 within three other contests: France 2007; Germany 2009; and the UK 2010. In offering a comparative history of the use of the Internet as an election tool, the authors are able to test the optimistic view that the Internet is transforming elections while also mapping the role the Internet plays and performs for parties and candidates. Lilleker and Jackson offer in-depth analysis demonstrating how interactive Web 2.0 online tools, including weblogs, social networking sites and file-sharing sites, are utilised and evaluate the role of these tools in the marketing and branding of parties and candidates. Examining the interactivity between candidate, party, and voter, this important book will be of strong interest to students and scholars of political science, elections, international relations and political communication. It will be of value to those within public relations, marketing and related communication and media programmes.