Blogs in China: The Way to Beat the System?

According to a recent New York Times article, “Death by a Thousand Blogs“, there are now some four million blogs in China, representing about 4% of some 100 million Chinese Internet users.

This is remarkable, given the high degree of Web censoring that occurs in China today. Although China claims that its web regulation is no more restrictive than that of the US or Great Britain,...

The Internet’s Role in Political Campaigns

We recently completed a study that assesses the utilization of the Internet as a tool for 2006 political campaigns. The study, a follow-up of the 2002 version, examined how 2006 senatorial candidates used the Web to publicize information about their campaign platforms, personal backgrounds, and volunteer opportunities. We looked at a number of Web campaign tools and made comparisons based on party affiliations,...

2006 Blog Review

After finishing our study of campaign websites, we took the time to check out the Senate candidates’ blogs.  Here is a review of some of the best and worst campaign blogs for 2006.

Rick Santorum’s (R-PA) blog, “Running with Rick”, was the most complete of the three incumbent blogs we found,...

Best 2006 Senate Campaign Websites

We’ve been working on a study testing how effectively this year’s Senate candidates are using the Internet for their campaign websites. The study won’t be released for a few days, but so far we have been able to identify some of the best campaign websites out there. These websites stand out because they successfully present seemingly complicated web tools in a clear and user-friendly fashion,...

Kinky for Governor Website: Hitting the Right Notes

As a follow up to my last post, the Kinky Friedman for TX Governor website is the kind of candidate website I’d like to see more of. It’s a good example of a campaign site that is both professionally done and a true reflection of the candidate’s personality.

It’s working too: 169,000 Texans have signed a petition to get Kinky on the ballot in November as an Independent and he’s outraising the main Democrat in the race....