The evolution of American politics through technological change

Business -- Political Science

The evolution of American Politics over Time due to Technology

It's not overly obvious at first glance, especially since politics sometimes lags in modernization when compared to the private segment, but politics takes advantage of every technological advance there is, now and will continue to do so in the future. Back in the day, Alexander Hamilton, among others used the printing press in order issue the Federalist Papers almost anonymously (Teal, n.d.). That was a just the beginning of a road that has progressed from candidates literally yelling at the whole group in order to get them to take action, to the present day world of Twitter.

Over the years, radio and television have changed politics in many ways. "Before FDR's fireside chats, almost nobody knew what Herbert Hoover sounded like. One could seek out a message from him in a newspaper, but he couldn't reach people proactively. The famous Kennedy-Nixon debate was the one where the radio audience felt that Nixon had handily won the debate. The TV audience saw Nixon with sweat on his face and no makeup on, and thought he had collapsed miserably in comparison with the suave Senator Kennedy. There are many who think that TV got JFK elected. A lot of people have observed that in an age of TV the people would almost certainly not elect a man as awkward as Abraham Lincoln or as portly as William Howard Taft" (Teal, n.d.).

In America, people have almost always had the right to express their political opinions. This freedom of expression is what sets this country apart from many others. Yet, not until the rise of the Internet have people been able to have such astonishing platforms for this freedom of expression in regards to political matters. Fifty years ago, one might get their own political opinion out in the open during dinner conversations, by writing into a newspaper and hoping a letter to the editor was published, or maybe by giving speeches in public or semi-private settings. "Now, however, one can get their political opinion out there in so many more ways. Many people simply say what they think on Facebook, where a single comment can reach hundreds of people. Others who are more involved in political thinking and activism start blogs that can be read by millions of people over time" (How Technology Changed Politics, 2011).

These days, it's easy to take technology for granted and to forget how it has radically changed people's lives over the last decade. Developing internet and cell phone technology has had an impact on nearly every part of people's lives, from the way they communicate with friends to the way they do business. More and more, it is being seen how technology has even altered the longstanding political institution of the United States (How Technology Changed Politics, 2011). Even though there are multitudes of ways that technology has changed politics over the years, there is the promise of many more to come.

History of Technology in Politics

According to Housley (2011), American politics has seen a few revolutions since the revolution that gave this nation its independence. To date, George Washington remains the only president to be voted into office commonly, and since his time the politician is obliged to win the hearts and minds of the people. Therefore, getting out one's message has been the typical challenge of the presidential candidate. Originally, office-seekers relied on stump speeches and the press. Abraham Lincoln won over his supporters through a series of live debates. When radio came on the scene in the 1920's, contenders extended their reach into the very homes of Americans. The amount of voters went up. The advent of television in the late 1940's transformed politics once again, directing the focus of the nation to good looks on camera and message control, getting the perfect sound bite

Types of Media

The American political system has come in to a new era of high-tech politics in which the performance of citizens and policymakers, as well as the political program itself, is progressively more shaped by technology. "The mass media are a key part of that technology. Television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and other means of popular communication are called mass media because they reach out and overwhelmingly influence not only the elites but the masses" (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010).

Academics differentiate between two kinds of media. First there is the print media, which include newspapers and magazines, and secondly there is broadcast media, which is made up of television, radio, and the Internet. Each has redesigned political communication at dissimilar points in American history (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010). The daily newspaper was a creation of the late nineteenth century, while radio and television have been around only since the first half of the twentieth century. "As recently as the presidency of Herbert Hoover (1929-1933), reporters submitted their questions to the president in writing, and he responded in writing, if at all. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) was the first president to use the media effectively. Roosevelt held about one thousand press conferences in his twelve years in the White House and broadcast a series of fireside chats over the radio to reassure the nation during the Great Depression" (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010).

The broadcast media have progressively displaced the print media as Americans' main source of news and information. As a type of technology, television is almost as old as radio since the first television station appeared in 1931. Nonetheless, the 1950's and 1960's were the developmental years for American television. "The first televised presidential debates were the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates. The poll results from this debate show the visual power of television in American politics. Those who watched on TV favored Kennedy whereas people listening to the radio gave the edge to Nixon" (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010).

Television took the nation to the war in Vietnam during the 1960's, and TV exposed governmental lying in regards to the progress of the war. "With the growth of cable TV, particularly the Cable News Network (CNN), television has entered a new age of bringing news to people and to political leaders as it happens. Since 1963, surveys have time and again shown that people used to rely on TV for the news than on any other medium; and by a two-to-one margin, people used to think television reports were more believable than newspaper stories. Young people were particularly likely to rely on television, as opposed to newspapers, for news" (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010).

In 1934, Congress created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate the use of airwaves. Today, the FCC regulates communications via radio, television, telephone, cable, and satellite. The FCC is a self-governing regulatory body, but in practice it is subject to a lot of political pressures. The FCC has regulated the airwaves in three important ways. First, to prevent near domination of control over a broadcast market, it has put into practice rules to restrict the number of stations owned or controlled by one company. Second, the FCC conducts intermittent assessments of the goals and performance of stations as part of its licensing power. Third, the FCC has issued a number of fair treatment regulations regarding access to the airwaves for political candidates and officeholders (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010).

During Roosevelt's administration, the press had not yet started to report on a politician's public life. The proceedings of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal turned the press against government. Today's news people work in an atmosphere of cynicism; the press sees flushing out the truth as their job since they think that politicians rarely tell the entire story (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010). Investigative journalism is the utilization of detective-like reporting ways in order to uncover scandals, which puts reporters against political leaders. There is proof that TV's liking for investigative journalism has added to bigger public pessimism and negativism about politics.

Modern political success often relies upon control of the mass media. Image making does not stop with the campaign. It is also a serious element in everyday leading since politicians' images in the press are seen as good gauges of their power. Politicians have learned that one way to direct the media's focus effectively is to limit what they can report on to cautiously scripted events. A media event is staged mainly for the purpose of being covered. A large part of it is the slickly produced TV commercials. Few, if any, administrations dedicated so much effort and energy to the president's media appearance as did Ronald Reagan's. "The Reagan White House operated on the following seven principles: plan ahead stay on the offensive control the flow of information limit reporters' access to the president talk about the issues you want to talk about speak in one voice repeat the same message many times" (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010).

Today the outbound telephone marketing industry has given political campaigns the ability to reach out to a large group of targeted voters in a quick and quiet way, just below the radar. This notion went way beyond the small volunteer call centers that have existed for over forty years. It was essential for the technology to be in place and widely utilized. Political campaigns could not have put into production a complete industry of dissimilar companies, large and small, with many thousands of telephones in call centers. This was a revolution as one could target using any criteria from gender, age, vote propensity, income, level of education, to presence of children. One could shape the message even within a single calling agenda, so that they may be calling all women, but the script may be different for younger women in comparison to older women. And maybe most importantly, one can collect information. "If a candidate asks each voter what issue is most important to them, they can not only find out the answers that correspond to 100,000 individual voters but they can then change the way they communicate with those voters based on their answers" (Teal, n.d.).

In September 1998 two California-based entrepreneurs, Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, became frustrated with the political mess they saw going on in D.C. Feeling very American, they decided to do something about it and launched an online petition. Within a few days they had gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures. What they found people needed was a sense of empowerment, a way to have their voices heard. Blades and Boyd moved on to form the MoveOn.org Political Action Committee, an online organization which now boasts over 3.3 million members (Housley, 2011). Almost by accidentally, Blades and Boyd caught the attention of the media, as well as campaign organizers, who sent out bulk emails and created flashy fundraising websites faster than one can say donation. The effect that this had is still being realized today.

With the augment in cable channels and Internet usage, a recent tendency has been the increase in broadcast channels that are geared toward particularly narrow audiences, frequently referred to as narrowcasting. With so many readily available sources of information for so many specific interests, it will also be tremendously easy for those who are not very interested in politics to completely avoid news and public affairs (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010). The result could well be a growing inequality of political information, with the politically interested becoming more knowledgeable while the rest of the public slips further into political apathy. Only a relatively small number of TV stations are publicly owned in America, and these PBS stations play a minimal role in the news business, attracting low ratings. In contrast, in many other countries major TV networks are owned by the government.

Many now argue that politics is currently in the middle of an Internet revolution. Politics are said to be facing a parallel migration from place to space. "From the places visited by President Truman in his whistle-stop tour, campaigns have moved to the space of mybarackobama.com" (Wattal, Schuff, Mandviwalla & Williams, 2010). While some portions of political campaigns will stay the same, enduring to do business as usual, others will be altered in the Internet space. Customary election politics featured speeches, handshakes, fundraising dinners, billboards, TV ads, and campaign offices in small retail storefronts. In the virtual space of the Internet, e-politics centers on new delivery channels. These new channels include websites and blogs that expand television and print and create new types of personalized content where the message is textual rather than only oral (Wattal et al., 2010).

In this virtual space, campaign workers are likely to spend equal or more time canvassing their electronic neighborhood than they do traditionally canvassing neighborhoods. This will be done by soliciting and managing friendship requests on Facebook, releasing campaign videos through YouTube, or organizing meetings through meetup.com. These online tools permit almost immediate and continuous cycles of distribution and use of content at very low costs (Wattal et al., 2010). Future candidates and campaigns that pay no attention to these changes likely will be at a noteworthy disadvantage and face becoming immaterial to next-generation voters.

In general, the nature and extent of the Internet revolution in politics is in disagreement. Proponents see the Internet's interactive potential as transformational, while proponents foresee no Internet induced change in the fundamental political inequalities of the present system. Cornfield (2005) sees prospective for a reconfiguration of the most public aspects of the American political process in one of three ways: one advance to campaigning may govern, several models could contend over a period of time or each election cycle and political situation could create an exclusive arrangement. West (2005) suggests a transitional position whereby slow but steady incremental alterations become significant as these changes build up over time. Bimber and Davis (2003) typify the Internet's role as supplemental rather than relocating traditional media, an extremely effective niche communication tool for precise audiences and purposes such as mobilizing political activists.

Even though the American media is free and self-governing when it comes to journalistic content, they are completely dependent on advertising revenues to keep their businesses going. Thus, news reporting is a business in America in which proceeds shape how journalists classify what is exciting, where they get their information, and how they present it. To a great extent, TV networks classify news as what is interesting to the average viewer (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010).

An amazing amount of news comes from well-founded sources. Most news organizations allocate their best reporters to particular specific locations where news normally originates. Very little of the news is created by impulsive events or a reporter's own study. Most stories are drawn from circumstances over which newsmakers have substantial control. For instance, those who make the news rely on the media to broadcast specific information and ideas to the general public. Sometimes they feed stories to reporters in the shape of trial balloons, which is information that is leaked in order to see what the political reaction would be. "TV news is little more than a headline service. With exceptions like the Newshour (PBS) and Nightline (ABC), analysis of news events rarely lasts more than a minute. At the same time, complex issues-like nuclear power, the nation's money supply, and pollution-are difficult to treat in short news clips" (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010).

Oddly enough, as technology has facilitated the media to disseminate information with greater speed, news coverage has become less comprehensive. Newspapers once regularly reprinted the complete text of important political speeches; now the New York Times is almost the only paper that does so and even the Times has cut back tremendously on this practice. In place of speeches, Americans now hear sound bites of less than ten seconds on TV. The idea that the media have a liberal prejudice has become a well-known one in American politics, and there is some narrow evidence to support it. "Reporters are more likely to call themselves liberal than the general public, and more journalists classify themselves as Democrats than Republicans. However, there is little reason to consider that journalists' personal attitudes sway their reporting of the news. Most stories are presented in a point/counterpoint format in which two contrasting points-of-view are presented" (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010).

A conclusion that news reporting contains little unambiguous partisan or ideological prejudice is not to dispute that it does not twist reality in its coverage. In an ideal world, the news should reflect reality. In practice, there are too many likely stories for this to be the case. Journalists must pick which stories to cover and to what level. Due to economic pressures, the media are prejudiced in support of stories with high drama that will draw people's interest, rather than comprehensive analyses of complex issues. Television is mainly biased toward stories that produce good pictures. "Seeing a shot of a person's face talking directly to the camera is boring; viewers will switch channels in search of more interesting visual stimulus" (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010).

For a lot of years, students of the subject tended to doubt that the media had more than a marginal effect on public opinion. The minimal effects hypothesis stemmed from the fact that early scholars were looking for direct impacts. For example, whether the media affected how people voted. When the focus turned to how the media affect what Americans think about, more positive results were uncovered. The decision to cover or to pay no attention to certain issues can affect public opinion (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010). By centering public attention on specific troubles, the media influences the criterion by which the public assesses political leaders and in the end influences who get elected and who doesn't.

People are always trying to influence the government's policy agenda when they confront government officials with troubles they expect them to resolve. "Interest groups, political parties, politicians, public relations firms, and bureaucratic agencies are all pushing for their priorities to take precedence over others. Political activists (often called policy entrepreneurs-people who invest their political "capital" in an issue) depend heavily upon the media to get their ideas placed high on the governmental agenda" (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010).

Over the years, politics, and particularly elections, have developed into big business. "This is seen most prominently in countries such as the United States, where more than $2.1 billion was spent on the 2008 presidential campaign" (Mosk 2008). A recent occurrence is the rise of the Internet as a medium for political communication. The Pew Institute has reported that more than fifty five percent of the adult population in the United States gets their news and information from the Internet. Eighteen percent of Internet users have been reported to have posted to an online election forum in the past (Smith 2009). It is no wonder that political campaigns have appropriated this channel to distribute campaign messages. The Obama campaign's clever use of the Internet in the 2008 elections, predominantly in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, is extensively cited as a factor in his success. Likewise, the Internet also played a major role in Republican candidate Ron Paul's ability to raise millions in spite of being relatively unknown on the national stage, at the time. "The widespread use of the Internet in campaigns is evident from the fact that all major candidates in the 2008 U.S. presidential elections routinely released their television ads on YouTube as well as their own websites, and they made sure they had a presence on social media sites such as MySpace and Facebook" (Wattal et al., 2010).

The production of political events in order to attract media attention is a political art form. Important political events are often coordinated minute by minute with an eye on American TV audiences. Furthermore, it is not only the privileged that have successfully used the media. Many civil rights groups in the 1960 have relied heavily on the media to tell their stories of unfair treatment (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010). Many believe that the introduction of television helped to speed up the movement by graphically showing Americans what the situation was all about.

The media acts as key connection institutions between the people and the policymakers and have an intense impact on the political policy agenda. The regulator function of the media helps to keep government small. Many observers feel that the press is prejudiced against whoever holds office and that reporter's want to expose them in the media. With every new suggestion being met with cynicism, regular restraints are placed on the growth of government. On the other hand, when they center on unfairness in society, the media inescapably encourages the growth of government (the Mass Media and the Political Agenda, 2010). The media depict government as accountable for handling almost every major crisis. The rise of television advanced individualism in the American political process. Candidates are now much more able of running for office on their own by appealing to people directly by way of television and now the Internet. Television finds it easier to center on individuals than on groups. As a consequence, parties have declined, and candidate character has become more important than ever.

Influence of the Internet

Politics in the United States has come a long way from the time when door to door canvassing and stump speeches were the only way to reach voters. According to Wattal et al. (2010), President Harry S. Truman logged 21,928 miles in 4 months in 1948 during his famous whistle-stop tour, a journey that is credited with helping him to win the election. Fast forwarding to 2008, the Internet space is credited with helping a first-term United States Senator winning the 2008 Democratic nomination and then the presidency. Barack Obama reached out to millions of people by way of electronic means such as blogs and video sharing, giving voters both the ability to receive information and the occasion to interact and get directly caught up with the campaign and with each other.

Since about 2003, new technology began to change the way political campaigns were structured. It was this year that "Howard Dean utilized Meetup to help his supporters organize themselves. In February of that year, there were about 11 Dean meetings around the country, but by the fall, Meetup showed more than 800 monthly meetings on the specialized calendar. Clearly, organizing a political campaign across the country is much simpler than it once was because of useful tools like Meetup and other campaign organizers" (How Technology Changed Politics, 2011).

In 2000, Sen. John McCain raised over $500,000 online the day after the polls closed. Since then, a lot of other politicians have utilized the Internet to make fundraising easier and more resourceful. CreditDonkey is an organization that makes it easy for campaign supporters to use credit cards to make donations to political campaigns. Since almost everyone has used a credit card online these days, typing in that credit card number to donate to ones favorite party's campaign is not that hard. "Fundraising online has been quite successful for a number of politicians, including Ron Paul, who raised $4.3 million on November 5, 2007 and another $6 million on December 16th. According to Fox News that was the biggest one-day fundraiser ever seen" (How Technology Changed Politics, 2011).

The beginning of the Internet era and introduction of technologies such as email lists and social media have had an extraordinary impact on American politics (Davy, 2010). The internet has made people freer to express their own opinions, but it's also made it easier to take part in conversations with people of comparable or differing political outlooks. By way of Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, people can now have extended political conversations with people who live on the other side of the country and whom we have never met. While sometimes these conversations aren't anything more than a session where everyone states their own opinion and does not listen to the opinions of others, sometimes they're helpful for permitting people to actually learn something (How Technology Changed Politics, 2011).

Community engagement between political parties or candidates and everyday people is also more frequent now that the internet has given people so many social tools. More and more political campaigns are incorporating blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media methods into their agenda in order to hook up with potential voters across the nation. These alternatives offer a cheap way for politicians to bond with potential voters, as well as for them to become a bit friendlier than they can be when on television or giving official speeches (How Technology Changed Politics, 2011). These are only a few of the ways that technology has changed politics, whether for the better or for the worse. Since technology tends to permit more conversation about political matters and for more liberty of expression, most people would say that the majority of these changes have been for the good.

It is amazing how swiftly the internet has changed politics in a good way. Now YouTube can make or break political candidates. Online forums are ordinary and every politician must raise money on the web, in order to succeed. The change began in 2004, with Howard Dean's failed run for the Democratic nomination. The former Vermont governor revealed the influence of internet fundraising and it permitted him to come out of nowhere to be the frontrunner. Although his candidacy failed, it left a foundation of activists, known as the netroots, who mostly supported Obama in the 2008 race. "Obama's campaign utilized them extensively, creating a regimented campaign that out-fought and out-thought John McCain" (Harris & Smith, 2008).

Obama's appreciative grip of the netroots happened in part because he is very tech-savvy himself. Some have called him the first Blackberry President, as he has often be seen checking his mobile email device as soon as he gets off a plane. "He is an iPod-tuned, Facebook-friendly, Twittering politician who fits right into the digital age and makes other leaders look analogue. He can communicate directly with the public via profiles on Facebook and MySpace, photographs on Flickr, videos on YouTube, text message feeds on Twitter and meetings on his own social network myBarackObama.com" (Harris & Smith, 2008).

Obama's embrace of new ways of communicating in comparison with John F. Kennedy's mastery of the comparatively new medium of television means he can avoid the customary political media in a way that no other President has ever done. It will put the Washington media institution in the atypical position of being outsiders on an affiliation between a President and his public. "The decimation of mainstream media means that he and his direct-communications team will be able to work around the wreckage of the news business" (Harris & Smith, 2008).

As more and more people spend more and more time online, the Internet is reforming political campaigns in ways large and small. From the presidency to the lowest-profile local office, the Internet is saturating the way campaigns are structured. it's changing the way candidates raise money and eroding influence of candidates, political parties and the news media. Since the last presidential election, online video and social networking have exploded (Man, 2008). People are more informed now than they have ever been in the past which can be attributed to the instant access of information that advances in technology have brought.

Social networking sites, such as Facebook, have permitted groups linked by friendship, work or any other association to gather online, and talk about politics. Most attention is focused on the flashy YouTube videos, e-mails containing seemingly personalized campaign updates or scurrilous attacks on opposition candidates, blogs for every political persuasion, and the power of social networking. The Internet also has become a main element in fund raising at all political levels and is permitting campaigns to organize efforts and messages better than ever. The effects though have been greatest on the presidential campaign (Man, 2008).

Even though it's easier to reach more people with an opinion, whether that opinion is well founded or not, it's hard to tell precisely how the liberty of expression brought on by new technology has altered the way politics are seen. There are still obvious divisions between right and left and along other major political splits, and the new capability to reach thousands of people at once has certainly not brought Americans any closer to harmony on political issues. But this new capability to hear so many differing opinions at once may at least give people the drive to think through their own political principles or to have more political conversations than they have ever had before (How Technology Changed Politics, 2011). Modern technology is allowing for a more informed society as a whole.

Ever since 1996, every year has been acknowledged as the year of the internet amongst political people. In a way, it has been true every time. Besides sitting down with a piece of paper and writing a letter to the candidate asking them for more information, or visiting their office, there used to be very little information about the candidates that was accessible, when one wanted it. With the development of websites, campaigns have been free to post a brochure website and continue refining and adding answers so that, for voters with access to the internet, they could talk to voters on the subject of most interest to the voter, at the convenience of the voter (Teal, n.d.).

Websites have continued to evolve, and are now in the Web 2.0 phase. The conversation suddenly became one that went both ways, and websites grew from brochure sites to interactive occasions for the voter to manage events, make donations, give criticism and sign petitions. Facebook and twitter have been utilized efficiently for two election cycles so far and it will be interesting to see how the 2012 election will utilize it. It is thought that instead of each campaign having a fan page where voters like the campaign, more radical features will be utilized to aid the campaign get its message out. "There is expected to be a much greater level of engagement by the voters, who will be leveraging existing tools but in a more incorporated way" (Teal, n.d.).

Raising income for a political campaign is one of the biggest barriers that candidates have to conquer in order to make a victorious political run. This was seen when Howard Dean initially rose to fame as the consequence of a grass roots Internet donation campaign. "Yet technology was also Dean's downfall, as the result of the Dean Scream video getting excessive play time on the Internet and other broadcast media outlets. The recorded spectacle is said to be what led voters to ditch this overzealous candidate" (the Influence of Technology on Politics, n.d.).

With the invention of podcasting, everyone can be a journalist, in spite of their credentials or reliability. Technology has given self decreed political experts a platform from which they can spread their message. How much these political experts will be able to influence political campaigns and election results is still uncertain (the Influence of Technology on Politics, n.d.). People want information and technology is providing the avenue by which they can get it -- quickly and without many barriers.

Political videos of nearly every 2008 presidential candidates can be found on YouTube. In a lot of the posted videos, candidates are shown in old speeches; say the opposite of their present political positions. Politicians have yet to discover that their words may come back to haunt them, and it emerges that a lot of politicians have things from years past that can be found in the YouTube video library. Older political videos are causing troubles for candidates whose views have changed over the course of their careers (the Influence of Technology on Politics, n.d.). The accessibility of the audio and video clips, and wide media circulation, is propagating mistrust amongst voters who support candidates who have had a change of mind.