Using Technology, Building Democracy: Digital Campaigning and the Construction of Citizenship

The days of revolutionary campaign strategies are gone. The extraordinary has become ordinary, and campaigns at all levels, from the federal to the municipal, have realized the necessity of incorporating digital media technologies into their communications strategies. Still, little is
understood about how these practices have been taken up and routinized on a wide scale, or the ways in which the use of these technologies is tied to new norms and understandings of political participation and citizenship in the digital age. The vocabulary that we do possess for speaking about what
counts as citizenship in a digital age is limited.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a federal-level election, interviews with communications and digital media consultants, and textual analysis of campaign materials, this book traces the emergence and solidification of campaign strategies that reflect what it means to be a citizen in the digital
era. It identifies shifting norms and emerging trends to build new theories of citizenship in contemporary democracy. Baldwin-Philippi argues that these campaign practices foster engaged and skeptical citizens. But, rather than assess the quality or level of participation and citizenship due to the
use of technologies, this book delves into the way that digital strategies depict what good citizenship ought to be and the goals and values behind the tactics.


Author: Jessica Baldwin-Philippi
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 08/12/2015
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.66lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.10w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780190231927

About the Author

Jessica Baldwin-Philippi is Assistant Professor of New Media at Fordham University.