The emergent genre of campaign e-mail in the 2008 presidential nomination campaign

ABSTRACT

This study describes e-mail use in the 2008 U.S. presidential nomination campaigns. A content analysis and rhetorical analysis of over 1,400 e-mails from the primary season of that campaign reveal evidence of typification. Consistent practices and shared purposes are evident in the campaign e-mails, along with shared and individual variations indicating an emergent communicative form. In-group identification pairs with interactive, supporter behaviors to make up the dominant constellations-of-practice within this corpus.

KEYWORDS:

• Campaign e-mail
• genre analysis
• identification
• political communication

Notes

¹ For example, most campaigns have a personalized salutation in their standard e-mails, though some do not, and exclude it consistently. These campaigns often use other common features of the standard e-mail type, such as interactive boxes in the upper right corner.

² Pairs of coders identified the signatory of each e-mail and very few discrepancies emerged. Further examination allowed for a resolution of the discrepancy in each case (e.g., one coder did not recognize the name of a campaign official and coded it as “other”).

³ Our coders’ training in “emphasis” was guided by Kostelnick and Hassett’s (2003) technical definition of the term: “Nonreferential conventions tell readers what’s important and what’s not. They highlight some pieces of information, beckoning readers onto an informational veranda, or they hide other information in the attic or the basement. These strategies can be deployed in both textual and nontextual designs: Large print … color … location on the page … generous white space…” (p. 177).