Political Mobilization via the Internet: A Case Study of

MoveOn.org

Noriko HaraSchool of Library & Information Science

Indiana University, Bloomington

Prepared for the Oxford Internet InstituteJune 12, 2007

Before the Internet• Traditional political organisations

– Parties: central leadership, core ideology

• Traditional collective action (Bimber et al., 2005)– Binary choice to participate or not– Role of formal organisation

• Traditional social movements– Disconnected

– Limited access to mass media (if any)

Current Views• Business as usual (Bimber, 2001)

– Internet does not affect voter/information-seeking behavior

• Internet as an amplifier (Agre, 2002)– Only reaches people with pre-existing

interest

• Internet as a transformer (Bennett, 2003)– The political game itself is changing

Role of the Internet• Internet provides alternative

information sources –Traditional news organisations tend to

cover sensational (e.g. violent and/or large) protests, not civil and peaceful protest events (Oliver & Maney, 2000)

–Easier to disseminate information• Websites (Almeida & Lichbach, 2003)• Indymedia.org (Kidd, 2003)• Blogsphere (Kahn & Kellner, 2004)

Role of the Internet

• Collective action: boundary crossing from “a private domain of interest and action to a public one” (Bimberet al., 2005, p. 377)

• The Internet makes the boundary-crossing easier

Empirical Studies of Internet Politics

• Analysis of political campaigns via websites (e.g., Klotz, 2005; Xenos & Foot, 2005)

• Characteristics of populations who engage in on- and off-line political activities (e.g., Rice & Katz, 2004; Weber et al., 2003)

• Role of the media as a source of voter information (e.g., Rainie, et al., 2005)

• Mobilization’s impact on political activities (e.g., Castells et al., 2007)

Research Questions

• Do ICTs change the political game itself? (Bennett, 2003)

• How do citizens participate in political mobilization through an Internet-based grassroots organisation?

Research Site: MoveOn.org

6 June 2007

Numbers of major world news and business publications about

MoveOn: 1998-2005

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About MoveOn.org: Democracy in Action

• History• Originated in 1998• More than 2.7 million members during the

time of the study (currently over 3 million)

• Activities• Collective action opposing the Iraq war• Letter-writing, phone calls, donations

– Raised apx. $30 million

• House parties, bake sales, film screenings

Methodology

• A case study approach– In-depth interviews

• 15 active participants in MoveOn between October 2004 and January 2005

• People in both swing states and non-swing states

–Content analysis of e-mail messages generated by MoveOn staff between 1 August and 3 November 2004.

Methodology• Leave No Voter Behind campaign

sponsored by MoveOn

– Apx. 500 paid staff in 22 political swing states

– Recruited volunteers through “community meetings”

– The goal was to “produce 440,000 new voters for Kerry in the most important swing areas”(Pariser, MoveOn coordinator, e-mail, Aug 6, 2004)

MethodologyPassive online member (1) Active online members (7)

ActiveofflineParticipants(4 volunteers;3 paid staff)

Core members

Non-swing states

Swing states

Findings

Non-swing States

• Participation

• Community

• Empowerment via information

Swing States

• Participation

• Community

• Empowerment & disempowerment

Non-swing States: Participation

“They [MoveOn] make it real easy, that's what I like. They’re like ‘Here’s what we are doing now.’ If it’s a simple thing that I can do right then and there, I tend to do that. If it’s more, I try, I really believe in the phone things that they are doing and getting together to go to other states. But my schedule just hasn’t allowed me to take off and do that . . . . But . . . I really like the uniqueness of a bake sale and those sorts of things” [F, active online member]

Non-swing States: Participation

• Ease of participation–An active online member testified that

she responded to 70% of MoveOn’ssolicitations

• Called voters in swing states• Attended a variety of activities:

–A movie showing of Fahrenheit 911–A bake sale

Non-swing States: Community

• No MoveOn members in non-swing states met face-to-face

• More than a half of the informants commented that they felt they were a part of a ‘community’

Non-swing States: Community

“I live in a very conservative state. . . And sometimes I just feel as though I’m some kind of, like, I must be crazy, because ‘am I the only person that sees this?’ But MoveOn gives me a sense of community that there are other people out there, all over the place” [F, active online member]

Non-swing States: Community

• MoveOn organised opportunities that encouraged members to meet others:

–House parties

–Community gatherings

–Bake sales

Non-swing States: Community

Vigils to Support Cindy SheehanAugust 17, 2005 1,627 vigils in all 50 states and the District of Columbiahttp://pol.moveon.org/cindyvigils/pics.html

Non-swing States: Empowerment via Information• “They [MoveOn] were offering me

information that I wasn’t getting anywhere else, that I wasn’t seeing. They were activists and I like that, and they were bringing [information] to your attention . . . quickly and concisely, that you couldn’t possibly know about otherwise” [F, active online member]

Non-swing States: Empowerment via Information

• MoveOn:

–Provides members with an alternative channel to receive political sources

–Has influenced whether and how people seek out information

Non-swing States

Swing States: Participation

• All the informants were involved in the Leave No Voter Behind campaign

Canvassing volunteers

Volunteer organisers

MoveOn paid staff

District organisers

Swing States: Participation

• All the informants were involved in the Leave No Voter Behind campaign

Canvassing volunteers

Volunteer organisers

MoveOn paid staff

District organisers

20s & 30s

Swing States: Participation

• Most of the organisers hired by MoveOn were in their 20s and 30s

• More familiarity with technology?

• Age was a significant predictor of Internet use in the 2000 (Rice & Katz, 2004)

• Volunteers vary in age

Swing States: Participation• A typical day of a MoveOn paid staff:“There would be between four and six hours of calling

people to ask them to volunteer. Then there would be another six hours of managing volunteers, so speaking with volunteers and planning with them and checking in with them and especially providing technical support and coming up with numbers. My days ranged between sixteen and eighteen hour days, seven days a week. So mostly it was recruiting; phoning people and talking to your volunteers and then the rest of your time was spent in meetings with staff, trying to figure out plans and kind of talking about what we were doing. But there wasn't as much of assessing things, as there was actually talking to volunteers or making recruitment phone calls” (F, paid staff)

Swing States: Participation

“I have a lot of friends who are single, or don’t have families, and have disposable time on their hands. I had a lot of people that I could have volunteering with me. Where maybe people who are older, have families, or whatever, just had a harder time recruiting volunteers, but for me it was really easy” (F, volunteer organiser)

Swing States: Community

• LNVB campaign was based on a community developed through online networks

“I think partly what got me, and I think what got other people to go to that [initial] meeting [to solicit volunteers for the No Voter Left Behind campaign], there was a sense of community” [M, volunteer organiser]

Swing States: Community

• Data access

–A database with restricted access for use by members recruiting volunteers

–Another online database that stored information about registered voters & the results of canvassing

Swing States: Community

• E-mail communication to enhance a sense of community:

– General members

– Volunteers

– Paid staff (based on a different hierarchy)

Swing States: Community

“I remember sitting on the phone and I was crying because I was so emotionally invested in this election, and it was so inspiring, again, the sense of what being part of this national movement and this just incredible optimism that people brought to this work” [F, volunteer organiser]

Swing States: Empowerment

• Many people felt a sense of pride and accomplishment, even though their candidate was defeated

“I learned a lot about myself. I went outside of my bubble, my security blanket, or whatever. . . It empowered me to feel like I could make a difference in our nation’s government” [F, canvassing volunteer]

Swing States: Empowerment

“Having the opportunity and having the cause that so many people were interested in getting involved in. We had thousands and thousands of volunteers. A lot of people were skipping dinner with their families to go out and talk to voters in their neighborhood . . . And to be working with folks who are willing to do that, who felt as strongly about something as you did, you just really felt a sense of ‘we’re all in it together’” [F, paid MoveOnstaff]

Swing States: Empowerment

• Internet empowers people who otherwise have limited voices in other media (e.g., Fuglsang, 2005; Mehra, Merkel, & Bishop, 2004)

Swing States: Disempowerment

• Some low-level paid staff felt disempowered

“A lot of people had a real problem with the degree of hierarchy. . . . A lot of people just felt like they were totally disempowered as an individual and that they had been hired to do a job that they felt qualified for, and they had like no say. But, realistically, the scope of the campaign kind of necessitated that kind of passed down decision making” [paid MoveOn staff]

Non-swing States

Discussion

• Diverse set of activities allowed many people to participate

• Neighbour-to-neighbour campaign– Based on the existing community developed

online

– Coordination and communication among members via the Internet• Impossible to coordinate so many people in such a

short period of time without the Internet

– Online databases to recruit volunteers and identify voters

Discussion

• Empowerment

– Through information in non-swing states

– Through the campaign in swing states

• Some felt disempowered

Participation Influenced by the Internet

Passive online participants Active online participants

ActiveofflineParticipants Core members

Future Trends

• What’s next?

–Handheld devices used by the Democratic party in 2004

– Impact of MySpace / Facebook

7/6/07

Noriko HaraSLIS, Indiana Universitynhara@indiana.edu