Newswise — Presidential candidate Howard Dean's pioneering use of weblogs, or "blogs," has helped create a vast and loyal grassroots network at the cost of a certain amount of centralized control over the campaign's message. This may be the real secret behind Dean's success, according to a new report by the Center for the Study of American Government at The Johns Hopkins University.
According to the report's author, Alexis Rice, Dean's front-runner status among Democratic voters can be attributed in part to "the use of open-source politics: a decentralized Internet-based campaigning that relinquished a level of control over message, technique, and organization, yet created a successful and loyal grassroots network and fund-raising base."
As the 2004 presidential campaign heats up, consider Rice as a source on the use of blogs and the Internet in campaigns. She is a fellow in the Center for the Study of American Government at The Johns Hopkins University and the creator of http://www.campaignsonline.org.
The full report, entitled, "Campaigns Online: The Profound Impact of the Internet, Blogs and E-Technologies in Presidential Political Campaigning," can be read at
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