Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-2012
Abstract
The growing role of the Internet social networking sites (SNS) has served as a flash point for debate about the democratization of information, particularly in light of their perceived roles in the 2008 presidential election. This horizontal sharing of information undoubtedly facilitated the revival of the youth vote and volunteerism in many ways mimicking traditional grassroots approaches. While the role of the Internet SNS in mobilization efforts and information-sharing cannot be overstated, its effectiveness in creating a new “public sphere,” or transforming traditional electoral campaign strategies and communicative practices must be closely examined before generalizations about the democratization of media can be confirmed. In the aftermath of the election, theorists were quick to simplistically identify the use of social networking sites as key to this electoral shift. In this paper we attempt to advance contemporary theorizing of new media and institutional politics by examining specifically how and if ICTs (information communication technologies) and new media platforms are shifting the balance of power in terms of organization and mobilization away from the professional model and toward more democratic and bottom-up efforts. Reconceptualizing some of the basic theories of social movements and collective behavior this paper seeks to address questions such as: how are digitally enabled forms of mobilization affecting who becomes a participant; how do they affect organizational structure and leadership; how do they impact the dynamics of collective action; how do we address the powerful yet ephemeral effect of e-tactics established for short-term gains; can mobilizations succeed without collective identity and/or do we need new categorizations for collective identity; and whether e-tactics serve as a gateway for future participation.
Recommended Citation
Takaragawa, Stephanie, and Victoria Carty. 2012. "The 2008 US Presidential Election and New Digital Technologies: Political Campaigns as Social Movements and the Significance of Collective Identity." Tamara Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry 10(4): 73-89.
Peer Reviewed
1
Copyright
TamaraLand Publishers
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License
Included in
American Politics Commons, Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Social Influence and Political Communication Commons, Social Media Commons
Comments
This article was originally published in Tamara Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry, volume 10, issue 4, in 2012.