“Emerging Challenges and New Approaches in the Study of Elections and Campaigns”
Letter From the Editor
Curd Knüpfer, Freie Universität Berlin
2024 might be termed a global super-election year. Important elections are being held in around 80 countries, including some of the world’s oldest and most populous democracies. Meanwhile, campaign messaging tools are shifting rapidly as we move into a more high-choice social media environment, and new methods of cheap and easy content generation proliferate. It’s safe to state that this puts considerable strain on democratic systems. But it also puts our discipline under pressure: because our objects of study are in flux – but also because of increasingly manifest structural crises in academia and beyond.
All this comes at a time when democratic processes are deliberately targeted by political elites, public trust is low, and novel tools for enabling misleading or falsified information abound. Political Communication, as a field, is uniquely situated to make sense of such development and inform both policy decisions as well as public understanding of the ongoing shifts. Yet at a time when it is increasingly crucial that we do our jobs well, it has also become increasingly difficult to do so: Access to data is being barred, open APIs are shut down, public repositories are shuttered. And while we don’t yet know what impacts of the use of generative AI for campaigning will have, it seems more than plausible that this will complicate things further, creating new privately operated black boxes.
On these fronts, state interventions and regulations are slowly being implemented, but this currently seems to be primarily an EU-led initiative, potentially exacerbating not only digital divides but also epistemic ones. Meanwhile, researchers and academic institutions are being singled out for political attacks, often in cases where their research focus has previously highlighted activities by those seeking to undermine democratic processes. Add this on top of the already existing structural inequalities by which the increasingly difficult-to-bear burdens of academia are distributed and an overburdened peer-review system, under which we struggle to remain both timely and rigorous.
But: all is not doom and gloom! In fact, there are major steps made in various right directions as we continue to learn with and from one another across national contexts and institutional settings. As many of the essays of this issue of the Political Communication Report argue, there is also a lot of potential progress in how the field has already started to adapt. And: much of what we consider to be new has actually been around for quite a while, often just taking on slightly different forms. Recognizing this makes it easier to learn from the past.
All of this is also the point of this publication format: a self-reflexive space, where we can come together and jointly reflect and identify problems, but also to speak to one another and to reassure ourselves that we are not alone and that we grow together, as a field. On this note, I am once again, deeply indebted to the contributors for this issue, all of which have taken time out of their busy schedules to contribute to this conversation. So check out these essays and perhaps consider reaching out to these colleagues, in case you—like me—appreciate the work they do and what they share with us here:
- Kate Dommett and Sam Power observe how alarmism about novel technologies often precedes scientific inquiry. Their contribution calls for political communication scholarship to look to the past in studying and facing the challenges of today.
- Dave Karpf, in his piece reflecting on the trajectory of his own career and the present state of flux in campaign research, comes to a similar conclusion, advising PolComm scholars to go “back to the basics” and raising a banner for descriptive, qualitatively informed work.
- Amogh Dhar Sharma draws from his experiences in research on his upcoming book, “The Backstage of Democracy: India’s Election Campaigns and The People Who Manage Them,” in reflecting on the unique sets of methodological challenges faced by scholars working on election campaigns in developing countries.
- Isabelle Borucki provides more insights based on party practices from a case study in Germany, showing how parties and their members use digital tools and that it is a few power-members that are most active, in patterns mirroring those of offline mobilization.
- Alessandro Nai reminds us that as campaigns have become more digitized, they also seem to have gotten more negative—but also that we still know too little about potential connections, asymmetries, and varying effects of these trendlines.
- Finally, Heesoo Jang and Shannon McGregor look beyond specific campaigns and parties to point out that democracy itself is currently at stake—and that media coverage, as well as PolComm scholarship, need to be more firmly rooted in a commitment to democratic norms.
The last of these wonderful contributions also builds a direct bridge to the planned Fall issue of the Political Communication Report. Here, we’ll be taking a closer look at the normative foundations of the discipline in updating our collective understanding of what Political Communication is and what it stands for. Please consider reaching out to me, in case you feel like you want to speak to this topic.
Just like the previous issues, this one also features an interview section, highlighting the work of some of our award-winning division members. These offer insights into how these projects took shape and provide updates on where the research will be heading next. This issue’s featured winners are Dan Hopkins, Jianing Li, Rachel Smilan-Goldstein, and the team of Rune Slothuus, Rasmus Skytte, & Martin Bisgaard.
Happy reading – and please consider distributing these texts via social media and other channels!
Curd Knüpfer, Spring 2024