CFP: 2008 Presidential election and new media

Mass Communication & Society:  "The Facebook Election:  New Media and the 2008 Presidential Campaign" special symposium.  Tom Johnson and David Perlmutter, guest editors.  Some political observers dubbed the 2008 presidential campaign as the Facebook election.  Barack Obama, in particular, employed online social-interactive media (OSIM) such as blogs, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook to run a grassroots style campaign.  Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul similarly campaigned using OSIM technology in their organizing efforts.  The Obama campaign was keenly aware that voters, particularly the young, are not simply consumers of information, but conduits of that information as well.  They often replaced the professional filter of traditional media with a social one.  OSIMs allowed candidates to do electronically what previously had to be done through shoe leather and phone banks:  contact volunteers and donors, and schedule and promote events.  OSIMs changed the way candidates campaigned, how the media covered the election and how voters received information.  In this special issue of Mass Communication and Society, we seek theoretically driven and empirically grounded manuscripts on the role of OSIMs in the 2008 election campaign.  This special issue will appear at the end of 2010.  Submitted papers should follow the standard submission procedures outlined in the inside back cover of the journal.  Authors should specify in their submission letter that they wish their submission to be considered for the 2008 Campaign New Media Symposium and must be received by January 12, 2010.