The World Wide Web and Multimedia in the 1996 Presidential Election

The media in the 1990s is variously described as the interactive media or the so-called multimedia era. Cable television, laptop computers, fiber-optics, direct broadcast satellites, cellular telephones, and facsimile technology is being joined by the latest in interactive television, desktop video conferencing, and cable television modems, all of which bring together the streams of computer-based information of the World Wide Web with the visual images of cable television and broadcast television to create a stream of information into the nation's households and workplaces. The work of political campaigns in the 1990s is tapping into this dizzying array of multimedia. In the 1996 election, the latest in multimedia technologies were evident throughout the election season. This article is a review of the application of these new technologies in political campaign, with particular attention to the use of the World Wide Web in the 1996 presidential election campaign.