Joe Trippi, the top strategist for the 2008 presidential campaign of former Sen. John Edwards, spoke at the University on Tuesday afternoon and was awarded the Manship Prize for New Media in Democratic Discourse. Trippi talked about how the Internet has caused a shift in democracy through a new type of campaigning. Trippi explained that television changed politics in the 1960s when the debate between presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John Kennedy was televised – a shift comparable to how the Internet is affecting modern politics. Television shifted power, moving it to top-down communications. This means whoever has money can buy the commercials and influence the people, Trippi said. “The Internet is the new media,” Trippi said. “It is not just a communication shift, but it’s a shift in power.” Trippi said the presidential campaigns must now function as a “bottom-up” campaign. In a “bottom-up” campaign, the candidates let people outside the campaigns help communicate the candidates’ message. Trippi explained that the 2008 presidential campaigns are using this strategy. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., used this strategy in his 2000 presidential campaign and Barack Obama, D-Ill., is using this strategy. In February, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, changed her strategy and began turning to the Internet for her campaign. “There was a time when you had to be really rich to get any information,” Trippi said. Trippi compared the Internet to the printing press. When the printing press was invented, people received information they never could before, Trippi said. Trippi called the Internet the wealthy multiconnected printing press. “It is like nothing we have ever seen before,” Trippi said. The Internet will not just change our politics, but it will effect every institution in the country, he said. Bob Mann, chair of the Manship Prize Committee and mass communication professor, said “millions of Americans are playing a far more meaningful role in our political system” because of his ground breaking work. His first pioneer work began in 2004 when he became former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s national campaign adviser in the presidential election. He demonstrated how small-donor fundraising through the Internet raises more money than traditional methods.
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