For the first time in nearly half a century, the American public has been
presented with a new information transmission technology. The Internet has
experienced rapid growth in the last several years, and in 1996 it came to the
forefront as a source of political information and discussion. Not since the
advent of television has a new technology so greatly effected the way that we
communicate. The Internet has provided us with the best of many different
mediums. From television and radio it borrows the ability to broadcast
real-time news and events. Like a giant print media library, it allows users
to browse information at their leisure, reading what they want, when they want.
And like the telephone and post office, the Internet allows for private, direct
communication between individuals. These varied abilities and applications
make the Internet a sort of super-media, a new way of using one technology to
do many tasks that used to require different technologies.
When television was introduced in the 1950s, it revolutionized the way
Americans see the world, and how we deal with each other. Television brought
the world into everyone's living rooms, and made people feel more involved than
ever before in the world around them. One of the things that television
brought into homes across America was the race for the presidency. On
September 26, 1960, presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy
squared off in one of the most significant events in the course of election and
media history. For the first time, the debate would be televised and voters
across the country would be able to see, with their own eyes, the two men they
had to choose between. The reaction of television viewers after the debate was
that Kennedy had won, not based on his arguments, but rather on his image. The
tanned and relaxed Kennedy had appeared a stronger candidate than Nixon, who
refused to wear makeup and whose suit blended into the backdrop of the stage.
Thus began television's history with the presidential elections.1
Since that night in 1960, the media coverage has continued to move toward
issues of images, style and strategy. In television, radio, and print
journalism, political coverage has shifted from substantive issues-based
reporting to more and more coverage of campaign strategy and political news.
This presentation of information is essentially at odds with the information
that the electorate needs to make an informed vote on election day --
information about how the candidates stand on different issues. Television and
radio, by their very nature, do not allow voters to seek out the information
that is important to them. While newspapers may run background stories on
issues of importance to the electorate, they seldom receive front-page
coverage. This shift in the media focus has robbed voters of the one thing
that they really need to make an informed decision: information about
candidates' ideas and ideals, their positions on a variety of pertinent issues,
and specifics of their proposals and past voting records. All too often today
this salient issue information is scrapped by the news services in favor of
coverage of the campaign itself: the horse-race in the polls, a candidate's
stump-speech gaff, the firing of an aide, the strategy behind a new television
spot. While newspapers and magazines allow users to browse information at
their own individual paces, they are not easily indexed, and most users do not
keep a newspaper for more than a day or two, which makes referring to past
stories extremely unlikely.
The hypertext technology of the Internet's World Wide Web seems to have
provided a means for voters to pursue and browse issue information when and how
they want. Because it is fairly inexpensive to store information on the
Internet, published material does not disappear soon after it is published, but
remains active and available for long amounts of time. Additionally, numerous
meta-indexes and search engines help users sort through the vast amounts of
information to find exactly what they are looking for. In the realm of
politics and elections, this means that voters now have the ability to look
beyond media-reported images and strategy decisions and gather meaningful
information about the candidates and the issues that are important to them in
making their electoral choice.
Political information sites on the Internet are able to provide voters at the
click of a mouse with the information that they desire and need to make an
informed choice. This substantive issue information has been made available,
and the tools exist to help users find this information. But is it being used?
Are voters making the effort to search out this meaningful information, or are
they using the Internet for other purposes? How do different sites on the
Internet present this information and how is it being utilized by the public
who are surfing the Internet? These are all important issues in determining
the overall impact of the Internet on the American electorate. It is also
important to consider the migration of traditional media outlets to the
Internet, and their presentation of political information, as well as their
patterns of usage.
The Internet is still a very young and rapidly developing technology. What
was true in the 1996 election cycle is not likely to hold true by the time the
next presidential election is held in November, 2000. However, the patterns
that we see developing now, the lessons of 1996, will be able to provide a
guide for determining the future patterns of political information presentation
and utilization on the Internet. The big question is whether or not people are
using the Internet the same way they are using the TV and the evening news, or
if they are using its capabilities to look beyond the horse race coverage and find
the information that will decide their votes.
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