A diachronic analysis of Portuguese digital campaigning

Bearing in mind the dearth of inquiry about new media and political campaigns in Portugal, this chapterproposes an unprecedented cross-cutting analysis of the nature of online communication during theperiod of explosion of the e-campaigns. Such a topography and cartography for Internet communicationsand political campaigning, comprising distinct elections over time, allows for assessing both theevolution of the campaign online and the most influential contributions of the Internet to those evolvingtrends. The multiple wave nature of the data involved in the chronological study of the 2000 campaignsin Portugal is further complemented with extensive in-depth interviews conducted with different actorsfrom the limited universe of key respondents with direct involvement in the episodes under analysis. Itconcludes that the Internet went from a separate operation in previous campaigns to a more central rolewithin all Portuguese campaign divisions. Despite being touted as a revolution and a great communicationtool, the core features of the Internet have reinforced the continuity of previous tendencies ratherthan precipitating a radical break with the past. Moreover, although important interaction flows werecreated with the voters, those were discontinued once the campaign was over, thus making Websites, online platforms, social networks profiles, and video sharing channels used during campaign as obsoleteas old leaflets left on the floor after the rally has ended.