Candidate Web sites facilitated engagement in
a variety of ways. Most sites included features
that enabled involvement in campaign activities.
Fewer sites provided online structures that facilitated
mobilization of other citizens to support specific
candidates.
Building Support
Almost all candidate sites included
features that enabled interested citizens to become
involved in the campaign. These features included
volunteering, making campaign contributions, and
signing up for email updates from the campaign.
Turning Supporters into Advocates
About one-fifth of candidate
sites provided online structures that encouraged
mobilization of other citizens. These features,
such as sending links about the campaign via email
to other potential supporters, facilitating writing
of letters to newspaper editors, and downloading
electronic campaign paraphernalia, offer opportunities
for supporters to become advocates.
High intensity races
28% of candidates in high intensity races included
at least one mobilization feature , compared to
17% of candidates in low intensity races
Major party
candidates
23% of campaign sites by major party candidates
provided online structures that facilitated mobilization.
Only
14% of third party candidate sites included mobilization
features.
Senate candidates
41% of web sites for Senate candidates offered features
that encouraged mobilization activities, about
twice the proportion of Gubernatorial or House candidates.
Engagement Report
Engagement
Webscape
The Campaign Web Sphere Analysis is based on an assessment
of candidate web sites collected for the Election 2002 Web
Archive. Sites in the archive are available on the Web at
the Library of Congress Minerva
Project, in collaboration with WebArchivist.org
and the
Internet Archive, with additional funding from the Pew
Charitable Trusts through the Center for Communication and
Civic Engagement at the University of Washington.
This project was conducted under the direction of Professors
Kirsten Foot of the University of Washington, and Steve
Schneider of the SUNY Institute of Technology.
