Organizing Everywhere: How Social Media and Relational Organizing are Redefining Political Participation in the Digital Age

Social media and digital tools have changed not only the ways that political campaigns interact with voters externally, but also the ways that campaigns organize themselves internally. The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity to examine the impacts of digitization on campaign tactics and organization structures in a digital work environment, and to study the effects of the pandemic and broader changes in digital campaign strategies on political participation trends. The novel concept of ‘relational organizing’ has also had significant implications for how campaigns engage with communities as well as how campaign participants engage with one another. This study synthesizes emerging trends in digital campaign strategies, social media norms, and relational organizing theories within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to contribute to academic conceptions of political participation in a newly digital environment.