Technology is a Commodity: The Internet in the 2008 US Presidential Election

The role of the Internet as a tool for participation and organization has been considered the most important innovation in the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign and one of the key strategic factors in Barack Obama’s conquest of the Democratic nomination and the White House. This paper analyzes e-campaigning in the 2008 election through data drawn from qualitative interviews with top-level online professionals who were involved in the Presidential race. Rather than adopting a techno-centric perspective, professionals acknowledge that several contextual factors enhance or hinder the effectiveness of online tools, such as the candidate’s personality, the message of the campaign, and their ability to generate enthusiasm in the electorate. Technology is seen more as an efficient channel of preexisting motivations and loyalties than as a driver of these attitudes. Moreover, while the Internet has often been characterized as presenting campaigns with a dilemma between top-down hierarchical control and bottom-up anarchic spontaneity, Internet professionals argue that contemporary e-campaigning tools can help achieve both goals and breed a hybrid organizing model. These findings have important implications regarding the dynamics of contemporary campaigns and the role of citizen participation within them.