Politics

Digital culture and social movements

Posted by Daily news 10 December, 2008 Comments Off

The study of the activists who attended the web of calls Howard Dean in his campaign for the Democratic primary in 2004 revealed two aspects surprising: Half of the participants had no political experience whatsoever, and almost all were aware of the existence of Meetups candidate over the Internet, without any kind of personal mediation (Hindman, 2005). It was so contradicted known until now: That the majority of political activists are old veterans, and that almost all come to activism through personal contacts (friends or relatives ).

The campaign of Howard Dean questioned because The more conservative view on the role of new communication technologies on the political commitment: In 2004, the Internet was the (main, sometimes the only) means of entering politics for young (and not so young) with no previous experience in election campaigns .

¿ What is the role that Internet plays in attracting potential activists? What is the informational environment in which they move? What is the motivation that leads them to come into contact with the campaign of a candidate almost unknown? Once they become volunteers, what role the Internet plays in retaining its political ?

All these questions were applied to the empirical study of a campaign to Democrat legislative elections in the United States in 2006. “Political Activism in the digital age: The use of the Internet for political engagement in calls web” is the title of the chapter written by this correspondent and Professor Steve Jones of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and published in the book < > Digital culture and social movements , coordinated by teachers and Igor Sabadão Angel Gordo (Ed. Cataract, Madrid, 2008 ).
The book will be presented next Friday, December 12, 2008, at 11 the Nestor morning in the Hall of the Hotel NH Prado (Plaza Canovas del Castillo, 4, Madrid). Intevendrán Mayte Pascual, TVE journalist and an author of the book, and Igor Sádaba and Angel Gordo, also authors and coordinators of the publication. The table of contents and introductory chapter are available here .

References :
Hindman, Matthew. 2005. “The real lessons of Howard Dean: Reflections on the first digital campaign.”
Perspectives on Politics , 3 (1) :121-128 .

Technorati tags: politicalcommunication, political communication, comunicacionpolitica, communication .

Obama does not win in Europe

Posted by Daily news 4 December, 2008 Comments Off

European political parties are fascinated with the Obama phenomenon. Any candidate who is price now has to wear an interactive website, adorned with the resources of the so-called Web 2.0. The consultants receive orders from the political style “Give Me a web of like Obama, to see if something hits me.” But the Americanization of European election campaigns is limited to the personalism of the candidate. The real revolution of the Obama campaign (volunteers) has little chance of finding their reply on this side of the Atlantic .

In a chapter in American campaigns that compare with the British, Anstee and Chadwick (2008) warn the weight of the institutional context in the political implementation of communication technologies. In both the UK and Spain, the executive depends on a parliamentary majority, which is the one that elects the president of the government. In the United States, are the voters (not Parliament) who elects the president. Any U.S. citizen born in the United States can submit their candidacy for the presidency. In Spain one has to be a member of a particular party (and have the payment of assessments to date, say the statutes of the PSOE) to qualify the party itself as it chooses a candidate. In the U.S. presidential primary, registered as a voter any citizen can participate. In Spain, the PSOE made the primary after his defeat in the 1996 general, but only the militants of the party (and not just any citizen) were able to participate in the election of the socialist candidate. The winner, Josep Borrell, was not to the liking of the apparatus, and ultimately not attended as a candidate in general in 2000. The straitjacket of the party is not confined to Spain. In the UK, which would be mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, also won the Labor Party primary to compete for the mayoralty of the British capital. The party vetoed it, and had to win the municipal elections as an independent candidate (Hopkin, 2001 ).

In Europe, has written a political scientist, parties that belong more to the state to civil society. The hipermediatización of the policy premium to telegénico candidate, is undeniable. But the Americanization of European campaigns end there. Neither Facebook or YouTube, or Twitter, or blogs will give us an Obama Europe.

References :

Anstee, Nick and Andrew Chadwick (October 2007) Parties, Election Campaigning and the Internet: Toward A Comparative Institutional Approach (PIR RHUL / NPCU Working Paper No.5 ).

Hopkin , Jonathan (2001) Bringing the members back in? Democratizing candidate selection in Britain and Spain. Party politics, 7 (3). pp. 343-361

Technorati tags: obama, politicalcommunication, political communication, comunicacionpolitica, political communication .

Categories : Break Daily News, Politics Tags :

Rahm Emanuel, plumber more

Posted by Daily news 7 November, 2008 Comments Off

It is the closest thing to Karl Rove that has left the U.S.. Rahm Emanuel, who has just accepted the post of chief Cabinet at the White House, is a veteran of the Clinton era. He is considered the great architect of the Democratic majority in the legislative elections of 2006. The photos from that night electoral clear precedent for the new majority of Obama, showing a euphoric Emanuel alongside Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat in Congress spokesman .

Nicknamed “Rahmbo” for his athletic physical (going to professional dancer ) And his fine manners ( “This is important: Do not shit,” he spit out himself to Tony Blair before the British Premier to publicly defend Clinton amid the Lewinsky scandal), Emanuel is a character movie. In fact, mirrored television, the Josh Lyman of the series The West Wing of the White House , was preceded in popularity. Once again, nature imitates art .

With this election Obama disappoint the more leftist side of his party. Emanuel is the epitome of insider Capitoline, the black beast for supporters of Howard Dean. Congressman-elect for among the urban districts of Chicago, Emanuel symbolizes better than anyone the pragmatism of Obama. If the vice president Biden brings to the new president that has no international pedigree, Rahmbo delighted assume the role of bad cop, the doberman of attacking mercilessly who dares to defy his master .

Emanuel is, in theory, a Clintoniano faithful. It is said that he and Hillary were behind the launch of the “Fighting Democrats” (abbreviated Fighting Dems ), some 60 war veterans who attended the 2006 legislation under the label Democrat. The goal was to raise the profile warrior of the left front of the American Republicans, who monopolized the list of war exploits .

For those interested in learning in depth the tactics of Karl Rove Democrat, we recommend you read the book The Thumpin ‘: How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution (2007) of Naftali Bendavid, a journalist with the Chicago Tribune . At the time of this writing the book is “temporarily exhausted” at Amazon .

Technorati tags: obama, politicalcommunication, political communication, comunicacionpolitica, political communication, Emanuel, rahmbo .

Categories : Break Daily News, Politics Tags :

Obama, the new Reagan

Posted by Daily news 5 November, 2008 Comments Off

Obama wants to be the new Reagan. He said himself in a controversial video that his campaign team skillfully managed to neutralize. Wants to be a transformative president, as was the late Hollywood actor, who despite being a prominent governor in California, was born in Illinois, the state that elected Senator Obama. The dawn-American ( morning in America ) Reagan was subtly embodied in the logo of Obama, with a huge O announcing a new horizon .

The senator from Illinois has surprised in many respects. Against any omen, not deflate during the campaign, but is grown and responded to every challenge. His rhetoric has a lot of preacher (emotion clouds reason) but in several languages (including the famous speech on the race) and the remarkable, almost outstanding, prose of his two bestsellers ( Dreams from my father and The audacity of hope ), we have found a leader to articulate, able to think, analyze and report. His proposals to extricate America from the crisis have not been much more explicit than those of McCain, but at least we know who will be surrounded by a good team of advisers .

Obama, for his own status as a cosmopolitan man and mestizo, best represents the America that McCain’s twenty-first century. The Vietnam veteran pointed to the past: It was the metaphor of the fortress – “ our country first ” was his motto-election and his vice president Palin was a nod to the more conservative and insular America, the America small-town living .

Obama, like Reagan, is optimistic and pragmatic. He blamed lack of experience, but her knowledge of politics in Chicago, less violent than in the 20s but just as dirty, will be the best training for their tug of war with Iran, Russia and other adversaries in international politics.

In a matter of communication policy, Obama will have to give new incentives to their followers to not abandon the extraordinary support network that has been created. Some people wondered if Obama is not only the candidate-red, but the president-network, creating new tools for interaction between government and citizens. We shall see. For now, Obama has enormous challenges before them, including the survival of his own myth .

Technorati Tags: obama , politicalcommunication, political communication, comunicacionpolitica, political communication , Reagan .