For additional information:
Kirsten A. Foot, Ph.D. - 206.543.4837
Steven M. Schneider, Ph.D. - 315. 792.7331

STUDY REVEALS TOP FIVE WAYS WEB IS RESHAPING POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

Leading “Web Sphere” Analysts Investigated Archive of 2002 Election Campaign Sites and Created Technology to Allow The Public To Do The Same

WASHINGTON, DC, (March 4, 2003) – Two researchers from the University of Washington (UW) and the State University of New York Institute of Technology (SUNYIT) today released preliminary results of a broad analysis of campaign Web sites from the 2002 elections and identified the top five ways the Web is reshaping political campaigning. The analysis, based on the most extensive political Web archive ever assembled for public view, will be presented at the opening of the Election 2002 Web Archive at the Library of Congress on March 4th.

UW’s Dr. Kirsten Foot and SUNYIT’s Dr. Steven Schneider analyzed candidate Web sites from all 505 contests for U.S. House, Senate and Governorships. The analysis will be available on the project’s Web site http://politicalweb.info in connection with the Library’s opening of the Archive next month.

“Candidates are moving beyond the six second sound bite to the megabyte. More and more, candidates appear to recognize the Web’s strategic advantage in offering unlimited time and space for them to define themselves and their policy positions,” said Foot, an assistant professor at UW. “The Web is a very powerful force for candidates interested in conveying positions and encouraging the public’s participation and engagement. ”

The top five Web site characteristics of the 2002 mid-term elections:
1. Moving from sound bite to megabyte
2. Enabling mobilization
3. Facilitating online donations
4. Going beyond “brochure-ware” to “Web-ware”
5. Linking to other political Web sites

The Election 2002 Web Archive includes copies of 1,167 candidate Web sites archived between July 1, 2002 and November 30, 2002. It is part of MINERVA, short for “Mapping the INternet Electronic Resources Virtual Archive,” the Library of Congress’ Web pilot project for collecting born digital content, and will be publicly available beginning March 4th.

Through a user-friendly interface developed by the research team, anyone with Internet access will be able to review what candidates were saying and doing in 2002 by using a variety of navigation fields and factors, rather than just one as with a typical search engine.

“Powerful search engines like Google let people search the entire Internet in real-time using a single search term,” said SUNYIT’s Schneider. “This archive lets you search a content-related subset of the Internet – what we call a Web sphere – using several characteristics of candidates simultaneously.”

The project was funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and conducted by researchers at UW’s Center for Communication and Civic Engagement and SUNYIT. Since 1999, Foot and Schneider have been pioneering a Web archiving system that does not just identify and store Web sites, but also catalogues, analyzes, and provides a sophisticated research interface to displays of born digital materials.

“Our interface changes data into content,” said Foot. “It enables analysis of catalogued content so that people can study and make sense of information. Archives of born digital information have limited value if you don’t know what you’re looking for or can’t find it.”

Top Five Key Ways the Web is Reshaping Campaigns:

Moving from sound bite to megabyte: More than 80 percent of candidates used their Web sites to document the candidate’s position on at least one issue. More than three-quarters of Web sites with issue statements documented the candidate’s position on three or more issues; nearly one-quarter of these sites featured statements on 10 or more different issues. Furthermore, upwards of 80 percent of Senate and Governor sites and 67 percent of House sites examined, provided a rationale for position statements.

Enabling mobilization: More than 20 percent of Web sites examined provided opportunities for citizens to mobilize others to support the candidate, up from 5 percent in 2000. Mobilization converts silent supporters into vocal advocates who persuade others. Web mobilization features include systems to facilitate writing Letters to the Editor, sending “e-cards” to others and downloadable electronic paraphernalia including yard signs, bumper stickers and screen savers.

Facilitating online donations: In 2002, more than three-quarters of the Senate candidate web sites, and more than half of House and Governor candidate sites, included information about donating to political campaigns. Sixty-nine percent of Senate, 61 percent of Governors and 49 percent of House races also included the ability to make online contributions.

Going beyond “brochure-ware” to “Web-ware”: For the first time since the Web entered politics in 1996, more than 80 percent of candidate Web sites took advantage of the Web’s unique capabilities. Web-savvy candidates are moving beyond the familiar “brochure-ware” that provides basic information like biographies and issue positions. Eighty-five percent of the Web sites examined included one of these features: online campaign donations, campaign email list sign-up, campaign volunteer sign-up, sending links to others, downloadable e-paraphernalia (electronic bumper stickers, posters, etc.), or systems for sending Letters to the Editor.

Linking to other political Web sites: More than 85% of the candidate Web sites have a link to either a press, political party, government or advocacy group site. One quarter of all sites included links to two or more types of sites. In this way, candidates are increasingly participating in the creation of an inter-linked political Web Sphere, facilitating seamless surfing across different types of political Web sites by interested citizens.

The Election 2002 Web Archive is a joint project of The Library of Congress, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and WebArchivist.org, which is co-directed by Dr. Kirsten Foot at the University of Washington, and Dr. Steve Schneider at the State University of New York’s Institute of Technology. Founded in 2001, WebArchivist.org is dedicated to advancing the understanding of the Web by developing user-friendly systems for identifying, collecting, cataloguing, analyzing, and displaying large-scale archives of Web materials. For more information, visit http://politicalweb.info.

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