In Political Communication class, I learned that the internet, especially websites are becoming increasingly important in political campaigns. This article illustrates how the former North Carolina Senator John Edwards' presidential website explains the three tiers, which are; first-tier content, second-tier content, and third-tier content.
Trent and Friedenberg explains that the first-tier content website contains the candidate's biography, campaign news, as well as links that enable the visitor to volunteer to help the campaign or donate to the campaign. It also includes a clear means to facilitate contact between the visitor and the campaign. If that is the case, then the following links from John Edwards' website best illustrates the aforementioned first-tier functions in their respective order.
http://johnedwards.com/about/john/
http://johnedwards.com/news/speeches/
http://johnedwards.com/action/join/campaign-short/
https://www.johnedwards.com/action/contribute/form/
http://johnedwards.com/action/mobile/form/
John Edwards' website not only illustrates first-tier content but also demonstrates second-tier content. According to Trent and Friedenberg, the most commonly used of the second-tier content is multimedia. According to John Edwards' website, this function is best demonstrated by the following link;
http://johnedwards.com/media/
Still, the other tier that is illustrated by John Edwards' website is third-tier. Trent and Friedenberg points out that among the functions of third-tier website are providing ability of voters to organize their own fund-raising campaigns, providing for volunteers to organize and track their activities, providing help to volunteers to set up house parties for the candidate, and offering podcasts. Here is a link from John Edwards' website that illustrates how voters can organize thir own fund-raising campaigns;
http://johnedwards.com/login/?back=http%3a%2f%2fjohnedwards.com%2faction%2fcontribute%2fgrassroots
Threfore, it is reasonable to conclude that John Edwards' presidential website ties all the three tiers.
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I agree with this, that a single candidate website can apply to multile, if not all three tiers of political campaign websites. ( I was a little bit confused about this when doing the assignment last week). More specifically, I was confused as to how the first tier and third tier were different. However, as we discussed in class today, the third tier relates to the actual campaign website turning into the visitor's means to participate in the campaign, which is also illustrated in your post.
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