High-Tech Politics

Abstract

The free flow of political communication is considered vital in promoting democratic behaviour. To this end, technophiles contend, Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) can horizontally link new political actors. Yet it is the traditional mass parties that have made the most effective use of ICTs, whose impact has been on the vertical communication flow from political elites to the mass media to the public. This study analyses how the British Labour Party integrated new multimedia technologies, including telecommunications and computer databases, into its 1997 election campaign. It considers whether political journalists could critically approach material distributed by the parties or found themselves constrained by this use of ICTs. Finally, it addresses the democratic implications of these changes by discussing whether ICTs have led to an expansion or erosion of political communication.