Information Technology and Political Campaigning
from Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
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Tuesday, November 4, 2008, 12:30pm - 2:30pm
Changes in the information environment and information technology have had a tremendous impact on political campaigning. A growing literature has tracked, for instance, how new information technologies have shaped the way citizens acquire political information, discuss the political realm, and participate in political activities. Others have documented how information technology has changed the way candidates communicate with voters, raise money, and try to make political news. Fundamentally, however, this research has generally focused on how information technology has changed the style, but not necessarily the substance of political campaigns. In my recent book, The Persuadable Voter, and in ongoing research, I evaluate the way in which today's information environment has shaped not only how candidates communicate with voters but also who they communicate with and what they are willing to say. Most notably, candidates are now able to communicate targeted messages to smaller and more segmented audiences, changing the candidates' ability and willingness to campaign on divisive wedge issues—with potentially negative consequences.
About Sunshine:
D. Sunshine Hillygus is the Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of Government and director of the Harvard Program on Survey Research. Her research and teaching interests include American voting behavior, campaigns and elections, survey research, and information technology and society. Her work has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, and Political Behavior, among others. She is co-author of The Hard Count: The Social and Political Challenges of the 2000 Census (Russell Sage Foundation, 2006) and The Persuadable Voter: Wedge Issues in Political Campaigns (Princeton University Press, 2008). She is also a faculty affiliate of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science and on the executive committee of the Center for American Political Studies.
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