Abstract
Studies of election campaigning from a comparative perspective have a long history; this study approaches the topic through a most-similar regime perspective to explore the ebb and flow of innovations in digital campaigning between presidential campaigns in France and the United States. The hype surrounding the 2008 Obama campaign overshadowed innovations in France the previous year, while the 2011 contest gained little serious academic attention. Using a well-established content analysis methodology the research explains the strategic design of the digital dimension of the campaigns of the leading candidates (Sarkozy and Royal in 2007, Obama and McCain in 2008, Hollande and Sarkozy in 2011, and Obama and Romney in 2012). The research then assesses the strategic contribution of each feature using schematics for understanding the flow of communication, as well as the strategy employed by each candidate. The key findings are that the campaigns are becoming more interactive, with the citizens increasingly more able to enter into conversations with the campaign teams, however interactivity when it happens is carefully controlled. Largely, however, there is a strong similarity masked by the sophistication of US contests. Despite the advances in communication technology and the social trends they have instigated, campaign communication remains top-down and digital technologies are used to gather data and push supporters towards activism than creating an inclusive space for the co-creation that cyberoptimists argued would revitalise the structures of democracy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bordewijk, J. and Kaam van, B. (1986) Towards a new classification of tele-information services. Intermedia 14 (1): 16–21.
Burgess, J. (2014) From ‘broadcast yourself’ to ‘follow your interests’: Making over social media. International Journal of Cultural Studies 18 (3): 281–285.
Coleman, S. (2005) New mediation and direct representation: Reconceptualizing representation in the digital age. New Media & Society 7 (2): 177–198.
De Zúñiga, H.G., Puig-I-Abril, E. and Rojas, H. (2009) Weblogs, traditional sources online and political participation: An assessment of how the internet is changing the political environment. New Media & Society 11 (4): 553–574.
Farmer, R. and Fender, R. (2005) E-parties: Democratic and republican state parties in 2000. Party Politics 11 (1): 47–58.
Ferber, P., Foltz, F. and Pugliese, R. (2007) Cyberdemocracy and online politics: A new model of interactivity. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 27 (5): 391–400.
Foot, K.A. and Schneider, S.M. (2006) Web Campaigning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gibson, R. and Ward, S. (2000) A proposed methodology for measuring the function and effectiveness of political web-sites. Social Science Computer Review 18 (3): 301–319.
Graham, T., Broersma, M., Hazelhoff, K. and van’t Haar, G. (2013) Between broadcasting political messages and interacting with voters: The use of twitter during the 2010 UK general election campaign. Information, Communication & Society 16 (5): 692–716.
Grunig, J.E. and Grunig, L.A. (1992) Models of public relations and communication. In: J. Grunig (ed.) Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 285–326.
Harfoush, R. (2009) Yes We Did: An Inside Look at How Social Media Built the Obama Brand. Berkeley, CA: New Riders.
Howard, P.N. (2006) New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Jackson, N.A. and Lilleker, D.G. (2009) Building an architecture of participation? Political parties and web 2.0 in Britain. Journal of Information Technology & Politics 6 (3–4): 232–250.
Jackson, N. and Lilleker, D.G. (2010) Tentative steps towards interaction: The use of the internet in the British European parliament election 2009. Internet Research 20 (5): 527–544.
Johansen, H.P. (2012) Relational Political Marketing in Party-Centred Democracies: Because We Deserve it. London: Ashgate.
Kluver, R., Jankowski, N., Foot, K. and Schneider, S.M. (eds.) (2007) The Internet and National Elections: A comparative Study of Web Campaigning. New York: Routledge.
Koc-Michalska, K. and Lilleker, D.G. (2013) Online political communication strategies: MEPs, e-representation, and self-representation. Journal of Information Technology and Politics 10 (2): 190–207.
Koc-Michalska, K., Lilleker, D.G., Michalski, T. and Zajac, J. (2015) Social media actions and interactions: The role of the facebook and twitter during the 2014 European parliament elections in the 28 EU nations. Paper presented at the workshop digital media, power, and democracy in election campaigns, 2–3 July, Washington DC.
Kreiss, D. (2012) Taking our Country Back: The Crafting of Networked Politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Larsson, A.O. (2011) Interactive to me – Interactive to you? A study of use and appreciation of interactivity on Swedish newspaper websites. New Media & Society 13 (7): 1180–1197.
Lilleker, D.G. (2013) Empowering the citizens? Political communication, coproduction and the harnessed crowd. In: R. Scullion, R. Gerodimos, D. Jackson and D.G. Lilleker (eds.) The Media, Political Participation and Empowerment. London: Routledge, pp. 24–38.
Lilleker, D.G. (2015) Interactivity and branding: Public political communication as a marketing tool. Journal of Political Marketing 14 (1–2): 111–128.
Lilleker, D.G. and Jackson, N. (2011) Political Campaigning, Elections and the Internet in US, UK, France and Germany. London: Routledge.
Lilleker, D.G. and Malagón, C. (2010) Levels of interactivity in the 2007 French Presidential candidates’ Websites. European Journal of Communication 25 (1): 25–42.
Margetts, H. (2001) The cyber party. Paper to workshop ‘the causes and consequences of organisational innovation in European political parties’ at European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) Joint Sessions of Workshops, 6–11 April, Grenoble.
McMillan, S.J. (2002) A four-part model of cyber-interactivity: Some places are more interactive than others. New Media & Society 14 (2): 271–291.
McMillan, S.J. and Downes, E.J. (2000) Defining interactivity: A qualitative identification of key dimensions. New Media and Society 2 (2): 157–179.
Morozov, E. (2012) The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. New York: Public Affairs.
Norris, P. and Curtice, J. (2008) Getting the message out: A two-step model of the role of the internet in campaign communication flows during the 2005 British general election. Journal of Information Technology & Politics 4 (4): 3–13.
Rafaeli, S. (1988) Interactivity: From new media to communication. In: R.P. Hawkins, J.M. Wiemann and S. Pingree (eds.) Sage Annual Review of Communication Research: Advancing Communication Science, Vol. 16. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 110–134.
Rohrschneider, R. (2002) Mobilizing versus chasing: How do parties target voters in election campaigns? Electoral Studies 21 (3): 367–382.
Scherer, M. (2012) Inside the secret world of the data crunchers who helped Obama win, http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/07/inside-the-secret-world-of-quants-and-data-crunchers-who-helped-obama-win/, accessed 12 June 2013.
Schweitzer, E.J. (2008) Innovation or normalisation in e-campaigning? A longitudinal content and structural analysis of German party websites in the 2002 and 2005 national elections. European Journal of Communication 23 (4): 449–470.
Serfaty, V. (2010) Web campaigns: Popular culture and politics in the US and French presidential elections. Culture, Language, Representations 8: 115–129.
Simmons, G.J. (2007) ‘I-Branding’: Developing the internet as a branding tool. Marketing Intelligence & Planning 25 (6): 544–562.
Stromer-Galley, J. (2000) On-line interaction and why candidates avoid it. Journal of Communication 50 (4): 111–132.
Stromer-Galley, J. (2014) Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tenscher, J., Mykkanen, J. and Moring, T. (2012) Modes of professionalised campaigning: A four-country comparison in the European parliamentary elections. The International Journal of Press/Politics 17 (2): 145–168.
Vaccari, C. (2008) Surfing to the Élysée: The internet in the 2007 French elections. French Politics 6 (1): 1–22.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Appendix
Appendix
Coding categories used for content analysis (adapted from Gibson and Ward, 2000)
McMillan interactivity model
Downward information flows
Documents (for example, manifesto), Policies summed, Issues examined, Statement of Values/ideology, Newsletters, Media releases, Candidate profile, Election information
Event calendar, Frequently-asked questions, Negative campaigning, Videos, Targeted pages
Upward information flows
Volunteer, Donation, Merchandise, Cookies
Lateral/horizontal information flows
Link to: Party sites, Linked subsidiary sites and platforms (social media/blogs), External partisan sites, external reference sites (News), external reference sites (Governmental)
Interactive information flows: Asynchronous
Download logos/ posters, Site search, Enmeshing, Navigation Aids, Online games/gimmicks
E-mail contact, E-mail feedback, Join e-mail list, Questionnaires, Visitor initiated questionnaires, Polls, Visitor initiated polls, Petitions, Visitor initiated petitions, Join online campaign, Subscribe to e-newsletter, Membership, Bulletin board, Blog tools, Ability to share videos/pics (embed code), Podcasts, Social networking links, Twitter, RSS
Interactive information flows: Synchronous
Ability of visitors to upload content/comments, Ability of visitors to share information
Ability of visitors to update information, Public conversations allowed via comments or wall posting, Forum, Chat room, Online debate
Howard’s hypermedia model
Transmission
Documents (for example, manifesto), Policies summed, Issues examined, Statement of Values/ideology, Newsletters, Media releases, Candidate profile, Election information
Event calendar, Frequently-asked questions, Negative campaigning, Videos, Online games/gimmicks
Targeting
Targeted pages, Targeted social media, e-newsletters, email campaign sign-up
Harvesting
Volunteer, Donation, Merchandise, Cookies, Party sites, Linked subsidiary sites and platforms (social media/blogs), External partisan sites, external reference sites (News), external reference sites (Governmental), Download logos/ posters, Site search, E-mail contact, E-mail feedback, Join e-mail list, Subscribe to e-newsletter, Join online campaign, Membership
Interacting
Enmeshing, Navigation Aids, E-mail contact, E-mail feedback, Join e-mail list, Questionnaires, Visitor initiated questionnaires, Polls, Visitor initiated polls, Petitions, Visitor initiated petitions, Bulletin board, Blog tools, Ability to share videos/pics (embed code), Podcasts, Social networking links, Twitter, Ability of visitors to upload content/comments, Ability of visitors to share information, Ability of visitors to update information, Public conversations allowed via comments or wall posting, Forum, Chat room, Online debate
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lilleker, D. Comparing online campaigning: The evolution of interactive campaigning from Royal to Obama to Hollande. Fr Polit 14, 234–253 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2016.5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2016.5