Political movement or support group?

apophenia (in "processing trippi"):

What does it mean to have a candidate who can distribute their voices down the Internet channel as well as the TV channel? Everyone gets all excited because the Dean campaign had an interactive communication scheme online. What does that mean? How many people's opinions were changed this way? Somehow, i get the impression that the digital interactive environment allowed those with the same views to talk to others with the same views. This is *great* for support groups, but dreadful for changing the system.

Other early reports back from the pre-eTech "teach-in" also sound somewhat disappointed by Trippi's analysis of the campaign. There's lots of other great stuff in danah's post, including a distinction between digital campaignnng (in the sense of fundraising, media, get-out-the-vote, volunteers, etc.) and digital democracy, but the above quote might work well as an introduction to the chapter I'm submitting today.

In fact, it might be cool to start each chapter with a quote from a contributor and/or a contributor's blog.