Campaigning on the Internet

Abstract

Will cyberspace bring new forms of participatory democracy as computer-mediated communication reduces organizational costs? The Internet has the potential to change the nature of American electoral politics, but we doubt that it will. The character and popularity of cyberspace are more likely to foster an on-line electoral environment that replicates the real world, albeit in a slick electronic form. Notwithstanding the novelty and explosive growth of campaigning on the Internet, we foresee the Internet in general, and the World Wide Web in particular, as more likely to reinforce the existing structure of American politics than to change it.