Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita.

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborgs universitet, 1997. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement and abstract inserted. Includes bibliographical references (p. 249-279).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-212). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

This thesis is a mixed methods analysis of the use of new, interactive web campaign techniques, often referred to as Web 2.0, by constituency level campaigns at the 2010 UK General Election. It has two main objectives: measuring the adoption of new web campaign techniques amongst constituency campaigns and assessing the influence of different factors on campaigns’ propensity to use interactive campaigning. Drawing on previous work on parties’ use of technology, this thesis tests a socially shaped explanation of adoption, hypothesising that the offline campaign style will be a strong influence. This contributes to the wider debate about election campaigning online by using an analytical framework of traditional and modern constituency campaigning that contextualises web campaign elements within the campaign as a whole. Data to test this hypothesis comes from a diverse range of sources. A national survey of election agents (ESRC Electoral Agent Survey 2010) is used to measure the offline campaign style of campaigns and their adoption of Web 2.0 campaign sites. Content analysis data from a subset of regional campaigns is then used to assess the extent to which campaigns actually used specific interactive features across a range of platforms. Finally, the findings of these analyses are triangulated using qualitative data collected in interviews with campaigners following the election. The findings of this work show that despite the rapid adoption of Web 2.0 sites, campaigns have not fostered the kind of interaction associated with an architecture of participation. The drivers of Web 2.0 adoption are more complex than originally envisaged, whilst social shaping explanations are relevant, statistical models leave much of the variation in adoption unexplained. In conjunction with the accounts of campaigners collected through interviews, this strongly suggests that researchers must consider more intangible factors such as the perceived symbolic and instrumental value of web campaigns alongside social factors when attempting to explain the adoption of Web 2.0.

No description available.

Democracy is best described as a struggle over competing ideals and values. One of the most important places where this struggle takes place is in the electoral arena. My dissertation examines the struggle between candidates and their respective messages in this arena. Focusing on fourteen Senate races from 1998 and 2000, I examine, in depth, how the struggle over competing ideals takes place (or in some cases, does not take place) and whether some candidates are more successful than others at navigating their message through the political environment to voters. This study examines the impact of candidate skills and resources as well as state characteristics on the strategies candidates employ when emphasizing campaign issues. In addition, my dissertation focuses on the impact interest group advertising has on the candidates’ campaign dialogue and analyzes media coverage in Senate races by comparing each candidate’s core message to the campaign information transmitted by the media to voters. The analysis presented here reveals that candidates employ both multi-dimensional and unidimensional strategies. State party competition appears to offer the most plausible explanation for the variation in strategy across the states. Competition, rather than encouraging a multi-dimensional campaign strategy, appears to promote convergence towards the median voter and a unidimensional strategy. Furthermore, this study suggests that candidates face a number of obstacles in trying to transmit their campaign message to voters. In addition to struggling against their opponent, candidates have to struggle against both interest groups and the media to get their message to the electorate. Just under one-half of the advertisements interest groups ran were successful at interjecting issues into the campaign debate. Furthermore, in over seventy percent of the Senate races included in this study, the media emphasized issues other than what the candidates were focusing on. While this may have the positive benefit of infusing more issues into the debate, it may also blur the lines of accountability—particularly if candidates have no intention of acting on issues emphasized exclusively by the media.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 2003. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2925. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as preliminary leaves iii-iv. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 70).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 239-259). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

The increasing number of candidates relying on their personal wealth and corporate experience in their bids for elected office raises the question: how do voters perceive these non-traditional candidates and their willingness to spend their personal money in order to win elected office? Using both an experimental design and data from the 2009-2010 election cycles, I test for the effects of self-financing one’s political campaign on voter support for the candidates and their vote share in the general election, respectively. I find that partisans’ evaluations of candidates decrease when alerted to their self-financing. Independents evaluate self-financing candidates more positively than traditional candidates. In addition, self-financing one’s campaign had a negative effect on candidates in the 2010 general elections for the U.S. House of Representatives independent of their spending levels. / text