« Funeral Travel Plans | Main | Dave's Obituary »
November 9, 2006
Tuesday's Election and the YouTube Effect
A few days ago, Micah Sifry and Josh Levy of the Personal Democracy Forum invited me and other Internet types to offer some quick thoughts (200 words or less) on the role of technology in this year's election. They've just posted the first batch of responses, including comments from me, Danah Boyd, David Weinberger and Ethan Zuckerman. I decided to focus on the role of user-generated video.
YouTube, Blip.tv and other video-sharing sites have forever changed the way the public participates in the election process. With legions of camera-toting partisans following around candidates 24/7, there's no way a politician can get away with saying something foolish or nodding off during a hearing.Video-sharing sites may now be the ultimate platform for gotcha journalism, but we can do better than this. Just as political blogging is evolving beyond simply tearing down politicians, video sharing needs to evolve beyond exposing political gaffes. For example, Minnesota's e-democracy.org invited the public to upload videos in response to an online gubernatorial debate. Meanwhile, VoteGuide aggregated videos of speeches made by candidates in California's 11th congressional district to make the candidates' positions as transparent as possible, capturing and tagging everything the candidates said on the record.
User-generated political video is only in its infancy, but the macaca kerfuffle demonstrates it can have real impact. The question remains, though, whether it will evolve beyond gotcha journalism and allow citizens to have a stronger grassroots voice while keeping politicians honest. Early signs are positive, and we should expect to see nationwide initiatives similar to e-democracy.org and VoteGuide during the next election cycle.
Given the fact that the two closest races in the Senate - the ones that eventually turned the chamber over to the Democrats - featured losing candidates that got lambasted on YouTube, you have to wonder if the video sharing site tipped the balance of power. Sens. Conrad Burns and George Allen both lost their respective races by a relative handful of votes. Videos critical of them were seen by tens of thousands of YouTube users, who blogged about the videos until the mainstream media started playing the videos as well. Think that swayed a few votes? How could it not? -andy
Tags: citizenjournalism | conradburns | elections | georgeallen | politics | video | youtube
Posted by acarvin at November 9, 2006 4:58 PM
Listen to a computer-generated podcast of this article
