The Internet and American Political Campaigns

This article provides an overview of major research findings regarding the Internet and American political campaigns. This is still a nascent subfield, but the research community has come to general agreement on five key points: (1) at the mass behavioral level, the Internet has not changed fundamental participatory inequalities; (2) we have seen an increase in small-donor activity, and these donations tend to flow toward polarizing candidates; (3) for political campaign operations, “mundane mobilization tools” carry the largest impacts; (4) with political campaigns, the new focus on data analytics and the “culture of testing” is substantially changing resource expenditures and work routines; and (5) there is currently a clear partisan divide between how Democrats and Republicans employ digital technology for campaigning. The article also discusses the methodological challenges that separate Internet-related research from many of the more established fields of campaign finance-related research. It concludes by posing a set of research questions for the 2014 and 2016 election cycles which will likely prove fruitful.