Mobilization, Inequality, and News Communities in the 2020 Iowa Caucuses

• In Event: Rallies, Protests, and Mobilization

Abstract

Nearly three decades ago, Rosenstone and Hansen (1993, p. 5) argued in their groundbreaking book on political mobilization that “people participate in politics not so much because of who they are but because of the political choices and incentives they are offered.” Even as the study of political behavior has turned its focused to partisan identity (e.g., Mason 2018), the mobilizing effects of campaign activity remain arguably as important as ever. Parties and candidates have adopted increasingly sophisticated digital communication technologies, voter file databases, and targeted strategies for mobilizing niche segments of the public (Gerber and Green 2000; Green and Schwam-Baird 2016; Nickerson and Rogers 2014; Nielsen 2012). Most existing research on mobilization has focused exclusively on their impact from the vantage point of the campaigns who make decisions about deploying them. We know little, however, about the experience of voters and nonvoters who are on the receiving end of such efforts—or are excluded altogether—and what those experiences entail.

This inductive study focuses on the perspectives of the engaged and disengaged publics during in the 2020 Iowa caucuses, which has served as the first electoral contest in the US presidential nomination process since the 1970s. The study is based on in-depth, in-person qualitative interviews (N = 70) conducted with a range of residents in the state both during the summer of 2019 and in the days immediately following the caucuses. Part of a larger project examining the drivers of news consumption habits, participants were selected based on their prior self-reported media habits with a balance between “news avoiders” (those who consume little to no news at all) and “news lovers” (those who access news dozens of times per day). The resulting variation among participants in the study, which loosely tracks divides along lines of socioeconomic class, offers a unique window into the divergent experiences of distinct groups of Iowans. Who gets mobilized and how do such processes play out in the contemporary digital media environment?

While some spoke fondly about the intense and sustained attention they and their fellow citizens receive as caucus-goers, such attitudes were hardly universal. Despite the state’s reputation for in-person, retail politicking, most described the campaigns in strikingly detached and mediated terms—as a colorful yet fleeting spectacle they watched from afar. Among the highly engaged, some did belong to circles in which mingling with candidates and campaign staff was commonplace and enjoyed, but most attributed their own involvement less to campaign outreach and more to norms about voting as a civic duty, social influences and obligations, or a combination of these forces. The contrast with the disengaged public was often stark. Whereas news lovers often recounted (sometimes with irritation) the barrage of appeals they received from campaigns in the form of personalized telephone calls, mailings, and advertisements, among news avoiders, several reported no contacts at all from campaigns and only a vague awareness the caucuses were even occurring. Some news avoiders struggled to attend caucuses due to structural barriers imposed by the caucus’s unique and time-intensive format—an indication that many campaigns may still be struggling to reach the very voters they strive to mobilize.

Our findings point to two important insights that extend previous work. First, the study illustrates a concern raised in previous studies about whether more sophisticated digital modes of mobilization might stratify the public along socioeconomic lines. Previous research on digital mobilization often emphasized its potential to deepen opportunities mainly for those already pre-disposed to participate and leave others behind (Schlozman, Verba, and Brady 2010). Although stratification online largely tracks patterns offline (Boulianne 2009, Oser, Hooghe, and Marien 2012), concerns have been raised about whether an overreliance on digital lists may prompt campaigns to increasingly train their focus on segments of the public who are already most politically active and most likely to respond favorably to campaign appeals (Krueger 2006). Our findings lend some evidence to these concerns.

Second, our findings point to the importance of what we have argued elsewhere is the generative role played by “news communities”—or the social circles to which many habitual news users belong. We show how these networks shape whether and in what form individuals participate politically or opt out. While previous studies, including Rosenstone and Hansen (1993), have underscored the importance of social networks in the diffusion of political information and engagement (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1992; Bond et al. 2012), our findings show concretely how these interactions create the conditions for political talk to occur and how it does or does not get translated into action.

Authors

• Benjamin Toff, University of Oxford

• Ruth Palmer, IE University