Some Things

This post is part of an ongoing series of posts about the Web 2.0 and its role in the American presidential election 2008. The main purpose of this series is to provide a platform for discussion among the members of our group and, in true Web 2.0 spirit, everybody else. It will lead into a series of podcast episodes. The series is being written for the seminar “Campaigns & Candidates” at the University of Osnabrück in the winter term 2008/2009.

I would like to give a little bit of background information on the term „Netroots“ since it has been used quite some times in our presentation and this blog. It may be important to understand what it means and what the difference between this and the developments of “web 2.0” we mainly discuss about are.

The term “Netroots” consist of the words “Internet” and “grassroots”. It should be clear what “Internet” stands for, of course, the “world wide web” – hint: you are using it right now.

The term “Grassroots”, used to describe political activism, means a movement which is driven by the constituents of a community. It derives from the base or the ground, like a grass plant from its roots. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it is natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures.

In the United States, (where the term is mainly used) the first use of the phrase “grassroots and boots” is thought to have been used by Senator Albert Jeremiah Beveridge of Indiana, who said of the Progressive Party in 1912, “This party has come from the grass roots. It has grown from the soil of people’s hard necessities.”

Often “grassroots”- movements develop on a local level as it is easy for people to get involved here and volunteer to support local parties or groups. This is the way a “grassroots”- movement influences politics on a higher level. The activities support the party on a local level, which in the end influences national politics. For instance, a grassroots movement can lead to significant voter registration for a political party, which in turn helps the state and national parties.

There is a number of traditional “grassroots” activities like hosting house meetings or parties, putting up posters, talking with pedestrians on the street (often involving informational clipboards), gathering signatures for petitions, setting up information tables, raising money from many small donors for political advertising or campaigns, organizing demonstrations, asking individuals to submit opinions to media outlets and government officials or holding get out the vote activities, which include the practices of reminding people to vote and transporting them to polling places.

We see that these are all activities, which essentially need a location. And this place cannot be somewhere in the dessert, but has to be easily accessible for people or even has to be a place where people coincidently pass by. Traditionally this can only be the actual place where people live, a certain region, a town or a street. For a “grassroots” movement the regional or local factor is of great importance and cannot be avoided. For a movement to develop spontaneously out of the people`s own drive, it is elementary that those people, who want to get involved, have a place where they can.

The internet makes a decisive difference here. For many of the activities there is no longer a place necessary, since they can be done in a virtual place. The Internet functions as a kind of location nearly everyone can reach from home that is not bound to a real place.

As the Internet gianed importance, especially for political campaigns, the term “Netroots” was introduced.

The first popular use of this term was “Netroots for Howard Dean” by Jerome Armstrong in 2002. (We talked about this campaign in our presentation.) Democratic political consultant Joe Trippi credits the success of his then-client Howard Dean to their listening and taking the lead from “netroots” activity.

“Netroots” outreach is a campaign-oriented activity that uses the web for complementing more traditional campaign activities.

Without regarding the possibilities of “web 2.0”, the internet itself is on the one hand as a kind of location and on the other as an improved communication medium important for “netroot” activism.

Many of the traditional “grassroots” activities can be done here, like they could be done on a marketplace or a street before. Putting up posters for example can be done on a wall or on a website, you would only use other means. If you think about it, you even talk about “posting something on a website” when speaking about the internet. Still this has nothing to do with “web 2.0”, and interactivness. We are talking about a website where the user can just look at the “poster” like a pedestrian could on the street and not about one where he can comment on the poster or subscribe to the group that made it (that would be a web 2.0 website).

Other traditional “grassroots” activities can be done quicker and easier with the help of the internet. It is in many ways possible to reach a greater number of people much more easily and – not to forget – much cheaper than before. It is simply possible to communicate a great deal faster.

This is of course very helpful if you want to organize a meeting or a demonstration. You can for example write an email to a hundred of people without having to spend more effort or money than you would when you just wrote to one person. There has not been a comparable opportunity before the internet.

When it comes to asking people to give their opinion or collect signatures this is again easier on the internet, and here we have the first “web 2.0” features in “netroot” activism as the users are responding in these cases.

An important difference between the use of the internet we could observe in the 2008 US Presidential election (”web 2.0″) and the use of the internet in elections before can perhaps be described like this: “Netroots” is “grassroots” on the internet or supported by the internet, “Campaining 2.0” (as we called it), is entirely happening in the online community.

The activities of “Campaigning 2.0” are to a large extent completely new, and cannot be done anywhere else than on the internet. For example, as we all know, before “web 2.0” it was not very common to shoot videos yourself and send them to broadcasting stations or a party to answer to their spots. In fact, just a few years ago, people would think you have completely gone crazy if you told them: “I just finished my video response to the latest Clinton spot, I got some points people should really think about. I think I might have a lot of views.”

The activities are also even less orchestrated then “grassroot” activities. The single user has every possibility to participate. There does not have to be a group that, for example shoots that video, by the new technological developments a single person has far more possibilities to produce and distribute content him or herself in different ways.

Concluding one can perhaps say, “netroots” is a term that describes political activism supported by the “traditional” internet and does not include the new possibilities of web 2.0, though this is definitely overlapping in some points.

So, as usual, web 2.0 community, fellow students, do I have a point here? Did you understand what I mean? Would you agree? Feel free to comment!

Geschrieben am Sonntag, 26. April 2009 um 20:52 und ist zu finden in C&C, Uni. Sie können die Antworten zu diesem Thema unter RSS 2.0 verfolgen. Sie können antworten, oder trackback von Ihrer Seite.