[Air-l] Political spam

[Christian Nelson]

On Feb 19, 2005, at 5:54 PM, Allan A Friedman wrote:

> I am curious as to why these groups are not filling our inboxes. There 
> are
> enough web-savvy conspiracy theorists out there, and some of them must 
> be
> desperate to wake us sheeplike masses from our ignorant slumber. They 
> call
> in to AM talk shows. Sometimes they leaflet a neighborhood. Where is 
> the
> spam?

It's in my in-box. I get stuff from someone in Cambridge, MA who 
appears to believe that every public official who has anything to do 
with the Charles River is part of an "evil" cabal attempting to kill 
off geese in the Charles. I have no idea how this person got my 
address, and I certainly never asked to receive their ranting. Further, 
I get  political stuff from  family members--mostly urban legends about 
political candidates/parties with whom they disagree--that is certainly 
unwanted, and which they must certainly know I don't agree with, just 
because they send these messages to everyone in their email address 
book. But this this spam? Must it be unwanted AND sent to people 
outside one's circle of friends, family, acquaintances, and co-workers? 
(If it isn't spam, its still an interesting phenomenon.)

Whatever the case, why don't we get (more) stuff that is both unwanted 
and from folks we don't know?
Part of the answer has to be that people dumb enough to think it would 
have any positive effect are unlikely to know how to spam people. 
Another part of the answer might be that those who could bring 
themselves to believe in the effectiveness of political spam--e.g., 
LaRouchian's who spam us with leaflets on the street--are political 
radicals whose radicalness is not the result of political thought so 
much as a need to be *seen* as outside of the mainstream and/or a need 
to feel rejected by the mainstream. Both of those needs are wonderfully 
satisfied by pamphleteering for unpopular causes on a street corner, 
but are not at all satisfied by spamming in its fullest, anonymous, 
form. (This also provides some explanation for the limitation of most 
political spamming--if we can call it that--to folks on the spammer's 
email address directory--those directories only contain folks who will 
be able to identify the "spammer" and thus be capable of rejecting them 
and/or contain folks who the spammer will be able to perceive as 
viewing them in a socially significant way as outside the mainstream.)

--Christian Nelson


Christian Nelson, Ph.D.
Scholar  in Residence
Dept. of Marketing and Health Communication
120 Boylston St.
Emerson College
Boston, MA 02116-4624