Political campaigns have traditionally been understood through the prism of organisation, assuming a contemporaneous temporal frame. However, the integration of digital media into political campaigning and the media-centred focus of modern political campaigns has strained the coherence of this approach. This paper takes a systems analytic approach in identifying differentiated temporal and spatial frames throughout the campaign taking the recent UK general election as a case study for concept development. The UK general election is a useful case for conceptual development as, while parties conduct campaigns at the national level centred around party leaders who are vying for the office of Prime Minister. local political geography is based on a system of constituencies where autonomous elections take place. The data collection is organized around the national-level campaign and the nine constituencies in Birmingham, England''s second largest city. The data collected includes the universe of Twitter and Facebook messages from the parties and candidates, YouTube videos, websites, leaflets, and appearances in national and local newspapers and television during the thirty-day election period in April and May 2010. This data will enable us to identify differences in the rate of campaign communications – directly and through broadcast media – at the national and local level and differences in the speed over the course of the campaign and across different media. The data analysis will enable us to identify the role of external events and inter-campaign and intra-campaign dynamics in speeding up or slowing down the campaign across.
