Digital Campaigning in France, a Wide Wild Web?

Abstract

In spite of the extensive media coverage of election technologies, the market and its players remain largely unknown. Who are they? What do they do? What are their strategies? This chapter leverages new empirical data to answer these questions, drawing in particular from a series of interviews with providers of political technology in France. We show that the sector is heterogeneous and that its boundaries are fluid, including actors who provide wildly different services and initially embraced different economic and technological strategies. We also show that the nature of the services provided as well as the partisan dimension of each company depends on its target customers. However, due to economic constraints, the sector is undergoing a radical restructuring. The laborious implementation of “elections 2.0” in France is continuing with an increasing professionalization of its players, leading the sector to become more homogeneous and internationalized.