Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores how congressional candidates use the web to present information, the motivations that drive their presentation strategies, and the effect that various presentation technologies (i.e., graphics, pictures, audio, and video) have on those who visit candidate websites. Content analysis results from 2002, 2004, and 2006 confirm that fairly simple presentation features are ubiquitous across a broad sample of congressional candidates’ websites although more advanced technologies have developed gradually. Further analysis shows that the decision to include advanced multimedia is driven not only by practical concerns, like time and resources, but also by political considerations such as race competitiveness. To test the effect that presentation strategies have on website visitors, I conducted an experiment with a 2006 U.S. Senate candidate. The results of this experiment show that sophisticated presentation strategies can, in fact, help campaigns in a number of important ways – they can increase voters’ support for the candidate, focus the attention of likely voters on key campaign issues, and slightly boost knowledge of the candidate’s background and policy positions for those most engaged with the campaign. Taken together, this study demonstrates that candidates are motivated to use presentation technologies, at least in part, by strategic political concerns (i.e., race competitiveness) and that these concerns are largely addressed as evidenced by the positive outcomes reported in the experiment.