Abstract
As political parties’ and candidates’ e-Campaigning has become increasingly complex and sophisticated, scholars accordingly devise conceptual frameworks to understand and describe this social phenomenon. Yet, there is little scholarly debate concerning the varying conceptualisations of political parties’ or candidates’ utilisation of e-Campaigning. A review of existing e-Campaigning conceptualisations reveals three major limitations: namely, lack of academic rigour, a technologically deterministic orientation of e-Campaigning practices, and variation in the coverage of e-Campaigning practices. Potentially, these limitations might impede the comparability of e-Campaigning studies over time and across countries. In response, this research paper proposes a conceptual, practice-based framework that builds on the existing research. This paper then uses empirical data from a New Zealand political party to illustrate the application of the proposed framework.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Farrell, D.M., Schmitt-Beck, R.: Do political campaigns matter? In: Campaign Effects in Elections and Referendums. Routledge, London (2002)
Bentivegna, S.: Italy: The evolution of e-Campaigning 1996-2006. In: Ward, S., Owen, D., Davis, R., Taras, D. (eds.) Making a Difference: A Comparative View of the Role of the Internet in Election Politics, pp. 217–234. Lexington Books, Plymouth (2008)
Schweitzer, E.J.: Innovation or normalization in e-Campaigning?: A longitudinal content and structural analysis of German party websites in the 2002 and 2005 national elections. European Journal of Communication 23(4), 449–470 (2008)
Dougherty, M., Foot, K.A.: The Internet and elections project research design. In: Kluver, R., Jankowski, N., Foot, K., Schneider, S. (eds.) The Internet and National Elections, pp. 16–26. Routledge, London (2007)
Gibson, R., McAllister, I.: Australia: Potential Unfulfilled? The 2004 election online. In: Ward, S., Owen, D., Davis, R., Taras, D. (eds.) Making a Difference: A Comparative View of the Role of the Internet in Election Politics, pp. 35–56. Lexington Books, Plymouth (2008)
Ward, S., Gibson, R., Lusoli, W.: The United Kingdom: Parties and the 2005 virtual election campaign - Not quite normal? In: Ward, S., Owen, D., Davis, R., Taras, D. (eds.) Making a Difference: A Comparative View of the Role of the Internet in Election Politics, pp. 133–160. Lexington Books, Plymouth (2008)
Voerman, G., Boogers, M.: The Netherlands: Digital campaigning in the 2002 and 2003 parliamentary elections. In: Ward, S., Owen, D., Davis, R., Taras, D. (eds.) Making a Difference: A Comparative View of the Role of the Internet in Election Politics, pp. 197–215. Lexington Books, Plymouth (2008)
Foot, K.A., Schneider, S.M.: Web campaigning. The MIT Press, London (2006)
Gibson, R.: Web campaigning from a global perspective. Asia-Pacific Review 11(1), 95–126 (2004)
Ward, S., Owen, D., Davis, R., Taras, D.: Making a difference: A comparative view of the role of the Internet in election politics. Lexington Books, Plymouth (2008)
Margolis, M., Moreno-Riano, G.: The prospect of Internet democracy. Ashgate Publishing Limited, Surrey (2009)
Dubin, R.: Theory building. Free Press, London (1978)
Lilleker, D.G., Jackson, N., http://newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/politics-web-20-paper-download/Lilleker%20%20Jackson%20Web%202%200%202008.pdf
The Bivings Group.: The Internet’s role in political campaigns. Report, The Bivings Group (2006)
Gibson, R., Nixon, R., Ward, S.: Political parties and the Internet: Net gain? Routledge, London (2003)
Dader, J.-L.: Spain: Cyber-quake in a soft democracy? The role of the Internet in the 2004 general elections. In: Ward, S., Owen, D., Davis, R., Taras, D. (eds.) Making a Difference: A Comparative View of the Role of the Internet in Election Politics, pp. 101–106. Lexington Books, Plymouth (2008)
Hill, D.: Indonesia: Electoral politics and the Internet. In: Ward, S., Owen, D., Davis, R., Taras, D. (eds.) Making a Difference: A Comparative View of the Role of the Internet in Election Politics, pp. 75–92. Lexington Books, Plymouth (2008)
Schweitzer, E.J.: Germany: Online campaign professionalism in the 2002 and 2005 national elections. In: Ward, S., Owen, D., Davis, R., Taras, D. (eds.) Making a Difference: A Comparative View of the Role of the Internet in Election Politics, pp. 235–255. Lexington Books, Plymouth (2008)
Davenport, T.H., Eccles, R.G., Prusak, L.: Information politics. MIT Sloan Management Review 34(1), 53–65 (1992)
Owen, D., Davis, R.: United States: Internet and elections. In: Ward, S., Owen, D., Davis, R., Taras, D. (eds.) Making a Difference: A Comparative View of the Role of the Internet in Election Politics, pp. 93–112. Lexington Books, Plymouth (2008)
Anstead, N.: The Internet and campaign finance in the US and the UK: An institutional comparison. Journal of Information Technology & Politics 5(3), 285–302 (2008)
Hill, S.: World wide webbed: The Obama campaign’s masterful use of the Internet. Social Europe Journal 4(2), 9–15 (2009)
Schmitt-Beck, R.: Political communication effects: The impact of mass media and personal conversations on voting. In: Esser, F., Pfetsch, B. (eds.) Comparing Political Communication: Theories, Cases, and Challenges, pp. 293–324. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2004)
McAllister, I.: Calculating or capricious? The new politics of late deciding voters. In: Farrell, D.M., Schmitt-Beck, R. (eds.) Do Political Campaigns Matter? Campaign Effects in Elections and Referendums, pp. 22–40. Routledge, London (2002)
Foot, K.A., Schneider, S.M., Dougherty, M.: Online structure for political action in the 2004 U.S. congressional electoral web sphere. In: Kluver, R., Jankowski, N., Foot, K., Schneider, S. (eds.) The Internet and National Elections, pp. 92–104. Routledge, London (2007)
Norris, P.: Digital divide?: Civic engagement, information poverty, and the Internet worldwide. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2001)
Gallaugher, J., Ransbotham, S.: Social media and customer dialog management at Starbucks. MIS Quarterly Executive 9(4), 197–212 (2010)
Margolis, M., Resnick, D., Levy, J.: Major parties dominate, minor parties struggle: US elections and the Internet. In: Gibson, R., Nixon, R., Ward, S. (eds.) Political Parties and the Internet: Net gain?, pp. 53–69. Routledge, London (2003)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
About this paper
Cite this paper
Gong, H., Lips, M., Tate, M. (2011). Revisiting the Conceptualisation of e-Campaigning: Putting Campaign Back in e-Campaigning Research. In: Tambouris, E., Macintosh, A., de Bruijn, H. (eds) Electronic Participation. ePart 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6847. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23333-3_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23333-3_17
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-23332-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-23333-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)