Controlling the Message: New Media in American Political Campaigns

The 2012 presidential and congressional races serve as a laboratory for the scholars in this volume, who contribute 13 chapters on the impact of social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, and online forums) on these elections. Editors Farrar-Myers (political science, Univ. of Texas at Arlington; coeditor, Corruption and American Politics) and Vaughn (political science, Boise State Univ.; coeditor, Women and the White House) identify four themes covered by their contributors: how the campaigns used new media; continuities and differences between new and traditional media; political consequences of new media; and broader effects upon democracy. The chapters share a structure of introduction, literature review, research question and research design, discussion, and conclusion. The editors, in summary, conclude that the fundamentals of running a campaign remain little changed and that the effects of social media, to date, "occur at the margins" (while noting that elections are often won at the margins).