INTRODUCTION & PURPOSE
Introduction
Now more than ever, our minds are fixed upon screens. We use our smartphones to complete virtually any task, from filing taxes to grocery shopping. We communicate through social media. We conduct business via email. We get our news online – fast. So much of what fills our minds is now determined by digital devices – most notably, our smartphones.
This digital tool has changed the way we think and learn, how we act, and the ways that we interact with each other. It’s also changed the way we govern ourselves. The way we vote. The ways that we decide who is worthy of leading our country. Political campaigns know this, and they have been taking advantage of it in ways that will shape history.
“Were it not for the internet, Barack Obama would not be president,” said Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post. “Were it not for the internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee.” Maybe she is right about that. Or maybe not. There is no way to know, as the internet has become so deeply ingrained into our lives that we cannot separate ourselves from it in a way that makes sense – without the existence of the internet, our lives today would be unrecognizable.
One thing we can say for certain was that Barack Obama took advantage of newly-available tools and put digital strategy at the forefront of his campaign strategy. The way John F. Kennedy mastered television as a medium, Obama mastered digital media. His campaigns used digital tools to connect with donors, to organize supporters, and ultimately to get out the vote. They used technology to elect the first black president in United States history – twice. Those campaigns made digital tools a priority, and it paid off. They looked beyond the D.C. political machine and hired people who were experts in digital technology and analytics. They made large investments in data centers and digital innovation, developed their own tech systems, micro-targeted voters and in doing so, created a thriving small-donor community online.
While scholars and journalists have written about Obama’s and other presidential campaigns’ use of digital media and analytics, few have explored this topic at the state level, where resources (and the playing fields) are more limited. And while there are authors who have explored the digital divide between Democrats and Republicans, few have taken a deep look at a state-level race to see how rival campaigns have differed in their use of data and digital technology.
Purpose
The North Carolina race for Senate in 2016 was one of the most competitive – and expensive – races in the country. Considered by many to be one of the top “battleground races” in a swing state, the election pitted Republican incumbent Richard Burr against the lesser-known Democrat Deborah Ross, a former state House representative, in what turned out to be a closer race than anyone expected. This article will go behind the scenes to find out how the two campaign teams perceived their media environment and used digital tools to assert themselves within it; how they used “web 2.0” tools like email, social media and online ads; and what effects data and analytics had on their campaign strategies.
Through a journalistic approach combining interviews with those who worked within the campaigns, campaign finance data, and social media content analysis, I have written a long-form web story that describes how technology, data and analytics played a role in the 2016 race for United State Senate in the state of North Carolina. The final product will be an article written to appear online on a website such as Vox or the New York Times’ Upshot, complete with embedded images, data visualizations, and in-text links to supporting studies and other online articles.
This story is beneficial to not only the academic community, which to this point has mainly focused on these topics at the presidential level, but also for political scientists and practitioners who can learn from these campaigns’ strategies, successes and missteps. Written for a mass audience, this article may also be of interest to any layperson who is interested in marketing, technology, or state-level politics.