BlackBerry fuels nasty campaign brush fire is a front page story in today’s Globe and Mail (Campbell Clark, Steven Chase, and Jane Taber, Friday, May 28, 2004, Page A1). This is the second time this meme has surfaced in the Globe – it was embedded in an earlier story by Taber (see below) so I can’t help thinking the Globe was planning this technology angle and waiting for an event hook to get it onto the front page.
That said, it is interesting that BlackBerrys have surfaced as the new technology to watch and that they have become mainstream news. This may be due to the fact the RIM is a Canadian company. It could be that we have a critical mass of people doing instant e-mail. It could be that we are beginning to think of the cultural effects of instant messaging and portable Internet enabled technologies. Elections make great turning points with which to date and explain change.
So powerful is the use of digital technology in the election that single comments can spread like wildfire along broadband lines and satellite signals, from war rooms in Ottawa to campaign buses rolling along distant highways in the Maritimes.The wireless war of 2004 erupted Wednesday night when the NDP Leader went, as political operatives like to say, off message.
Remember Carter and how his election win of 1984 was reported to have been helped by the use of e-mail. Likewise we saw
Howard Dean get attention this year for his web enabled campaign. Technology news and elections make interesting combinations.
The BlackBerry campaign
The weapon of choice in this political battle is the BlackBerry. It’s changing the way the campaign is being fought. Every strategist and journalist and many candidates are armed with one. Its effectiveness was demonstrated on Sunday during Mr. Martin’s launch speech when the Tories were able to e-mail reporters quotations challenging the Prime Minister’s assertion that Mr. Harper wants to reduce taxes below U.S. levels.
Is Martin tired and grumpy or never more vigorous?, The Globe and Mail Jane Taber, Thursday, May 27, 2004 – Page A6.
The research question we could ask are:
1. Do elections accelerate cultural and technological change (the way wars do)? Or, do we notice and mark change by elections?
2. Is there a significant change happening in how we communicate using text due to wireless text messaging and e-mail?
3. How are these instant wireless text comm systems used? How do they change how we stay in contact and communicate?
4. Is cellphone messaging used differently than e-mail systems like BlackBerrys?
5. How are networks of people formed and maintained with such technologies, and how do they differe from phones and other communication technologies.
More questions than answers, as always.