Even as recently as ten years ago, campaigns were conducted using hard and fast rules of personal contact, television and radio media purchasing, print advertising and direct mail methods for creating a dialogue with voters.

The Internet has changed how campaigns talk to voters, and also how campaigns maintain communications between staff members, volunteers and consultants. There are now much faster and easier methods for raising money, recruiting volunteers, and getting the campaign message out – via the web, e-mail and interactive web forms.

The exact best implementation of these sort of tools is under debate. Politicians in many states have started websites and weblogs with a variety of degrees of success. Social software has been used to benefit politicians. However, at the same time, companies are offering tools that push the edge of social responsibility, including Spamming and Google bombing.

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