Web’s ‘youth appeal’ lost on campaigns

Micahel Xenos, an assistant professor of communication arts, is portrayed between two computer monitors displaying Web sites for the New Voter Project (at left) and Rock the Vote. Xenos is studying the impact of the Internet’s blogosphere environment on political involvement and the increasing polarization of American politics.

Photo: Jeff Miller

While millions of young people use the Internet to build expansive social networks, most political campaigns never manage to take the training wheels off the technology, using it mainly for tightly controlled, one-way communication.

By largely ignoring the interactive power of new media, political campaigns have squandered an unprecedented opportunity to mobilize young voters and increase their participation in political life, argues Michael Xenos, a University of Wisconsin–Madison communication professor who studies new media and civic engagement.

“We saw in 2004 with efforts like ‘Rock the Vote‘ how the Web was giving young people the tools for involvement,” he says. “But the way traditional political activists use the Web is not at all like the kind of experience young people appear to be looking for in their personal lives. There is a generation gap within the Internet itself.”

Working with collaborators from around the country, Xenos examined campaign Web practices in the last two elections, looking at more than 1,000 sites in 2002 and another 100 in 2004, to identify trends in how sites are used. Xenos defines two broad categories of Web practices – one for adapting traditional strategies for online use, and the other for campaign techniques uniquely styled for the Web.

The vast majority of techniques from the 2002 study fell into the “traditional” category, he says. For example, 90 percent offer issue positions; 73 percent provide regular campaign updates; 69 percent provided for volunteer signup; and 55 percent allowed for donations online.

But other more Internet-savvy strategies were less used, Xenos says. For example, only 10 percent of sites allowed users to send links from the site; 9 percent offered Web toolkits for campaign support; 9 percent provided audio or video links; and 8 percent offered a site search engine.

Even some approaches that appear savvy employ techniques that would turn off most younger information seekers, Xenos says. For example, many sites that feature blogs will allow people to post a message only after they register on the site and provide a great deal of personal information of strategic use to the campaign.

“The focus groups we have done show young people are highly skeptical of that approach,” Xenos says. “We’ve had people say, ‘I support this candidate and I’m all for the cause, but I don’t want to be flooded with campaign emails.’ So they choose to go no further in the site.”

Xenos argues that a great deal more is at stake than simply improving campaign strategies for the Web world. The Internet has great capacity to improve democratic participation, especially in a younger generation that has traditionally tuned out of politics. In 1972, the first year 18-year-olds were granted the right to vote, 24.3 percent did so. By the 2000 election, the 18-year-old voted bottomed out at 14.3 percent.

The Web is essential for the current hypermedia generation, Xenos says, and to some extent the rise in Web campaigning and blogging at least partially contributed to the highest vote totals in a decade in the 2004 election among 18-29 olds.

In particular, the presidential campaign of Howard Dean offered some intriguing examples of using new media. Dean opened his site up to direct input and networking, and even allowed visitors to contribute to campaign materials. “He was doing things that many political consultants would say is crazy,” Xenos says, because he was relinquishing some of the control over his campaign.

But if politicians hope to appeal to younger voters, offering more opportunities for genuine interaction may be key, he says. In 2004 and 2006, Xenos is seeing more examples of “tension” between the old “war room” campaign model and those experimenting with networking and input.

“If (campaigns) are willing to trade in some of that control, they can capitalize on the greatest strength of the net – participation and interactivity,” Xenos says. “You can generate a lot of energy by loosening that process up and allowing people to be more self-directed and co-productive of the campaign.”

Of course, the traditional campaign methods are used because they are battle-tested and effective, so changing strategies is not without risk. But Xenos says that as the 2004 election illustrated how the Web is now a mainstream force, and not just the province of the politically hard-wired, he expects to see more tension between the old and new models.