Page 205 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Political Organizations
“[t]he rules of campaigning since the beginning of the TV era are still in
play.” 216

SUMMARY OF THE CASES

What do the cases of the Libertarians, Environmental Defense, Save the
E-Rate Coalition, the Million Mom March, and the 2000 campaigns sug-
gest about the state of postbureaucratic political organization? It comes
as no surprise that none of the cases involves a purely postbureaucratic
organization.Feworganizationsorpopulationsoforganizationsrespond
to changed environments by transforming themselves in toto in the space
of a few years. Yet all five cases exhibit some of the features of postbu-
reaucratic organization, and together they provide suggestive support
for the thesis that a relationship exists in contemporary politics between
the evolution of information abundance and changes in organizational
structure.
Evidence in the cases about the effects of information technology
on staff and resource requirements is intriguing. For small organizations
with few resources, the infrastructure of information technology appears
to substitute in certain cases for money and staff, permitting modestly
or poorly endowed groups to behave as if they had greater resources.
The Libertarian Party and, at the outset, the Million Mom March, of-
fer the best illustration. The Libertarians avoided the costs of a major
mass mailing or media campaign by using electronic mail and the web.
Although the cost was still substantial and limited their ability to repeat
the effort, it was far lower than the cost of traditional techniques of com-
munication. Organizers of the Million Mom March exploited the low
cost of information and communication differently. Its founders used
the technology to build a viable, network-based organization with very
216 Reed, personal interview. The 2000 elections also saw the first important experiments
with banner advertising, the closest equivalent to broadcast advertising because of
its inadvertency. For instance, the Bush campaign spent a total of about $100,000 for
banner ads, including an ad about Bush’s tax cut proposal in the finance section of
Yahoo, where citizens viewing financial information would see a notice about Bush’s
plan to reduce income taxes. For the most part, banner ads such as these were not
very successful, however. Banner advertising proved for some candidates to be either
ineffectiveormorecostlythanbroadcastadvertising.TheBradleycampaignhadpoor
success with a set of ads, and the Buchanan campaign found that a petition campaign
toplacetheReformPartyonstateballotscostabout$80persignaturethroughbanner
ads, which is far more than the $5 or so per signature charged by political consulting
firms. Sources: Angelo interview; Braswell interview; Haley interview; Reed, personal
interview; Reed, published interview; Pamela Parker, “Political Campaigns Discover
Online Advertising,” InternetNews, Feb. 4, 2000, http://www.Internetnews.com.

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