Hosted by Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer

Thank you for visiting "The Navigator – Live." Today's chat ended at 3 p.m. EDT.

From the Web White & Blue Web site

Today's guest was Cathy Clark, from Web White & Blue. She was here to discuss this year's elections and the internet's impact on the electoral process in America. Web White & Blue, sponsored by the Markle Foundation and Harvard's Shorenstein Center, performed as a gateway to political sites across the nation.

"The Navigator – Live" appears each Thursday from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern time. It's a live, moderated discussion offering washingtonpost.com users the chance to talk directly to intriguing and sometimes unusual guests who are shaping the digital world. "The Navigator" appears in The Washington Post print edition every Thursday. You can read past columns by following this link.

Linton Weeks: Welcome, Cathy. I know you all must be tired after a long long Tuesday. Thanks for being our guest.

Cathy Clark: Thanks, Linton. Glad to be here.

Linton Weeks: Cathy, please tell us a little bit about Web White & Blue. What's it all about? Whose idea was it? When did you launch it?

Cathy Clark: Web White and Blue is an online political awareness campaign designed to make democracy easier. WWB was the first time nonprofit and commercial sites cooperated to help the public get nonpartisan political information when and how they want it. The idea actually came from America Online during a meeting Harvard Shorenstein's Center held last June where a consortium of .org and .com sites discussed what they could do during the campaign to help voters. We lauched the WWB site (webwhiteblue.org) on Oct 7, and it ran through election day, Nov. 3. The site is still available as a resource.

Linton Weeks: What did you discover in the process?

Cathy Clark: We discovered that there is a genuine interest in the newly developing internet industry to serve the public interest. For a Foundation that has been working in policy issues surrounding telecommunications for some 30 years, we thought this voluntary effort of over 1200 leading Internet sites, including Lycos, CNN's AllPolitics, and Yahoo!, to donate prime real estate to a public good was extraordinary and deserving of high recognition.

We also know that about 500,000 users logged on to WWB since it was launched a month prior to the election. In our site's user survey, 84% said that 1998 was the first time they used the Internet to find election information. And 88% said WWB made finding information extremely or quite easy.

Linton Weeks: Do you believe the Internet had much impact on the 1998 elections?

Cathy Clark: We think that 1996 was about technology. Having a public presence on the web was exciting and sufficient though traffic was low and most candidates did not invest a great deal in their websites.

1998 was about content. For the first time, voters could type in their zip code and get access to information about all of their candidates, from local through national. Never before has it been so easy to become informed about local issues at your convenience.

2000 will be about interaction. There were some early experiments in using e-mail to target voters’ interests, to fundraise online and to sell campaign products. But it was just the beginning.

Linton Weeks: Can you point to any specific candidates or initiatives that were helped, or hurt, by Internet activity?

Cathy Clark: Reports indicate that Jesse Ventura's successful independent gubernatorial campaign in MN was a grassroots effort that depended on the Internet to update voters about campaign events. They used the Internet to send daily updates to over 3000 supporters. And they advertised for a "geek squad" to follow their 96-hour caravan across the state and put it on the web.

Philadelphia, PA: Was your site accessed more often by one particular group, such as one geographical region more than others, or one gender more than the other? Who WERE your prime users?

Cathy Clark: Our data indicates that the site was used pretty equally by both men and women. The most interesting demographic finding was that the older the user was the more pleased they were with Web White & Blue.

We think more interaction would probably attract more young users.

Washington, DC: Will you ever put original content on your site?

Cathy Clark: Our goal was to promote the great content across the Internet, not to compete with others. That worked.

In the future, we may want to support content or activities that wouldn't happen otherwise.

Linton Weeks: In my column today, Ron Gunzberger of the Politics1 Web site says that the Internet will eventually become for candidates a campaign headquarters, a place where folks can pick up literature and learn what tasks need to be done. He doesn't believe that the Internet has much persuasive power. What do you think?

Cathy Clark: The Internet is a technology. Like any other, it can be used and shaped however we want to use it. For the most part during this campaign, most websites are still a one-way communciation tool. Interaction is much more persuasive. When I e-mail my candidate with a question, and all I get back are canned press releases, I am not very persuaded to participate in his or her campaign.

Washington, D.C: I watched the talking heads on TV and called up results on the Web. Do you think that's how a lot of people used the Internet? Surely people didn't just sit around and watch the Web.

Cathy Clark: Basically, the way the web was used during this campaign was for information-gathering. Most people found our site when either looking for specific election information or browsing, about half and half.

Personally, I think the web is the perfect medium for election-night coverage. It's much easier to find what you want than to wait through reports on all races in all states on TV.

New York, NY: Do you think everyone needs ACCESS to the Internet for it to be truly useful? Is the Net just about entertainment, or is about creating an informed citizenry?

Cathy Clark: Actually, the Markle Foundation has sponsored a campaign on access to the Internet called "E-Mail for All." The goal of that campaign is to raise awareness in business as well as government about the importance of public access to the Internet.

The Internet offers enormous potential to help citizens become informed and participate in the political process.

Linton Weeks: Cathy, that's fascinating that your site appealed more to older users. How did you advertise it?

Cathy Clark: We had over 1000 participating sites that placed the Web White & Blue icon on their sites, or ran our banner ads for free. We also took out print ads on Web White & Blue Day, October 7, and placed some radio ads. We received extensive media coverage, especially online.

Philadelphia: What was the greatest shortcoming of using the internet to cover Tuesday's election? Did the immediacy of the web cause folks to avoid voting -- as they had insta-access to results -- any more than the television might have in the past? Also, what were the greatest blunders of internet election coverage? By the way, I am one of the 500,000 you mentioned.

Cathy Clark: We all need to test our services - unfortunately, ABC did it in public on Monday. They ran test election results that looked like final results before polling places had opened.

But I think we should give them some slack. What they and other news sites did on Wednesday with election results, cross-tabulating and creating easy-to-understand charts, was amazing.

Others have asked whether we had technical glitches. Luckily, we did not. We are grateful to America Online for donating web hosting services to the Web White & Blue effort.

Linton Weeks: Okay, gang. We're a little more than half-way through the show. I'm going to grab some iced tea. Keep those questions humming.

Linton Weeks: A group of anti-Clinton activists organized a march in Washington recently using the Internet. Some 4,000 people showed up, which didn't sound very impressive to me. Does the Internet have the power to mobilize large amounts of people, or is it too individual-oriented?

Cathy Clark: Obviously the use of television in campaigns has changed the way candidates and governing officials communicate their messages to the public. I do think that the Internet, as its use evolves, will require knowledge of how best to convey information to an increasingly informed public.

Fauquier County, Va.: For years now, people have been predicting the Net would be the biggest thing to hit politics since TV. Yet it hasn't seemed to swing a single election yet. Why is that?

Cathy Clark: I think that eventually it will be. The Internet is in its infancy. Access is not yet universal. And as a result, campaigns have yet viewed the Internet as a primary outreach tool. But the economics speak for themselves -- at some point, maybe very far off in the future, the Internet will overtake television in impact because it is a more efficient means to reach interested voters with information that they care about.

Linton Weeks: What kind of feedback did you receive at Web White & Blue?

Cathy Clark: User comments were overwhemingly positive about the usefulness of WWB. Users said that it was a "great service to our country," that it helped them garner a "huge amount of good information," and that they were "happy to find a place where they could find out more about elections."

Linton Weeks: Aren't there other so-called portals to political sites on the Web? Why did you all believe the Internet needed another one?

Cathy Clark: There are two reasons that Web White & Blue was important. One is that we selected trustworthy election resource sites and organized them from a citizen's perspective. Second, and most important, was that we created access to these sites through the cooperation of thousands of sites all over the web. The idea behind Web White & Blue was to put election information within one click of wherever people were on the web during the campaign.

Linton Weeks: What kind of negative feedback did you receive?

Cathy Clark: Some of the feedback accused us of being partisan, but these comments came pretty evenly from people of varying political perspectives. We also received some criticsms that we were unable to link to specific candidates, parties, or issue-advocacy sites.

Linton Weeks: Is the Markle Foundation involved in other online projects? What offline projects is the foundation pursuing?

Cathy Clark: We’ve been very involved in using media to support citizen participation in campaigns. In 1992, we supported broadened CNN coverage of the presidential campaign, and in 1996 we developed "Reinventing America" an online interactive game to help people make decisions about the federal budget.
The Foundation spends approximately $9 million per year on projects promoting the development and use of communication technologies to enhance lifelong learning and promote an informed citizenry. We support research and experiments on the role of media on political participation, on using interactive technologies for learning, and in communications policy issues.

Linton Weeks: Cathy, how many people worked on Web White & Blue?

Cathy Clark: Web White & Blue was a colloborative effort of The Markle Foundation and Harvard University's Shorenstein Center. American Online donated hosting services, and the campaign was directed by the International Advisory Group and Fleishman-Hillard. Our talented and dedicated project manager was Steve Clift of Minnesota E-Democracy.

Linton Weeks: What happens now with Web White & Blue?

Cathy Clark: The site will remain online as a resource, and from this positive experience we are exploring what we might want to do with Web White & Blue in 1999 and 2000.

The issue for the 1998 campaign was helping people to access the rich information that was already on line. The issues in 1999 and 2000 may be different. In any case, the Markle Foundation will be looking carefully at the how best to help citizens benefit from developing internet technology.

Linton Weeks: That wraps up another Navigator--Live. Thanks as always to the folks at washingtonpost.com. Next week my guest will be Chuck Martin, author of "Net Future: the 7 cybertrends that will drive your business, create new wealth and define your future." Be sure and show up next Thursday, at 2 p.m. Eastern. And don't forget to bring all your brilliant questions about the future of the Web and life itself. Until then...

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