Political discourse on the Net

By Robert Silverman

NEW YORK- Commercial online services and the Internet are repaving the
road to the White House, altering the processes by which the country
chooses its president.

The 1996 New Hampshire primary election, intended to report the opinions
of a local electorate, is fast becoming nationalized by disparate voices
from the online world.

As Republican presidential candidates Sen. Bob Dole, Sen. Phil Gramm and
former Bush administration cabinet member Lamar Alexander toss their
hats into the primary ring, usegroup and commercial online forum-goers
from across the nation aren't far behind with criticisms and advice.

Citizens from other geographic regions are harnessing online power to
influence New Hampshire voters. And local New Hampshire political
discourse is being expanded from such traditional forums as diners, town
hall meetings and rotary clubs to such virtual worlds as Delphi Internet
Services Corp.'s PolitiNet and CompuServe Information Service's
Republican Forum.

One New Hampshire resident recently posted a note to the entire Eastern
section of CompuServe's Republican Forum, asking users to advise her on
a guest list for a proposed Tupperware-party-like meeting at her home
hosted by candidate Alexander.

The posting stands as a classic example of cyberpolitics breaking down
geographic barriers: One local voter looked to the entire Eastern
seaboard for help in influencing local voters in her state.

Over at Delphi's PolitiNet, one regular user from California posted a
message warning New Hampshirians that the California state legislature
was not in favor of California's governor, Pete Wilson, joining the
race.

Where C-Span turns its national cameras on such events as New Hampshire
town meetings, bringing local voices to a national audience, the various
online media bring localized voices from the national stage back to the
race in New England.

And the potential for misuse is obvious. Was the Californian on Delphi
really privy to his state legislature's collective opinion about Wilson,
or did he make it up?

``To the extent outsiders are really going to influence votes, it's
often through fraudulent means. Dan Quayle was outed as gay on one
usenet group,'' said Stephen Bates, a senior fellow at the Annenberg
Washington Program in Communications Policy.

And in many cases, Bates pointed out, individuals are more apt to trust
their counterparts over the presumed biases of the media elite.

In sum, Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw are competing with every online Tom
and Dan for the electorate's attention and trust.

The online media also has the potential to be misused on a greater
scale, especially in such elections as the New Hampshire primary, famous
for dirty politics in past years. In 1972, for instance, the primary
there became known for the Nixon campaign's ``dirty tricks'' against
opponent Edmund Muskie.

``With the Internet, you don't even need to leave the [White House] West
Wing - you can do it from your modem,'' Bates said.

For the most part, however, the online world mirrors the off-line world.
While many complain that commercial online forums and Internet usegroups
are comprised of over-opinionated crackpots, whining about Bill
``Klinton'' or Pat ``BuKKKanan,'' how much does this differ from
off-line discourse?

The key difference lies in the geography, as technology has felled
regional boundaries between the local primary and the rest of the
country.

Where mass media brings the voice of the elites (national political
parties, broadcast network newscasts, etc.) to local enclaves, the
online media now serve as a similar conduit for more specialized
messages.

And New Hampshire itself is beginning to realize this. Not only does the
state have its own home page, the town of Hanover is putting the
finishing touches on a local voting guide that will be available on the
World Wide Web.

As one online posting put it: ``Infomercials, shminfomercials. The
Internet is MUCH cheaper as a mode of passing the word, and the target
audience is more likely to be actual VOTERS than the soap-opera-heads
you'd catch watching TV all night. Money is past its zenith as a primary
function of power. The new one is the one you're looking at, right now.''

While somewhat drastic, this message does recognize that the online
world is one more battlefield for the old-fashioned war of political
words.

And just as TV changed national presidential elections in 1952 when
Dwight Eisenhower more adroitly used it to beat Adlai Stevenson, so,
too, does the online world have the potential to drastically alter the
primary process.