Here comes the drama llama...
You knew it was coming: Following the Lieberman/Lamont race and last week's widely broadcast remarks by Sen. George Allen, R-Va., in which he rather tactlessly referred to an Indian campaign worker as a "macaca" comes the New York Times piece in which bipartisan strategists cavort with the fabled alarmist alpaca (and perhaps my newly engineered species, the hyperbole gerbil) by sputtering about the potentially seismic influence online video site YouTube could have on the electoral system:
Yes, because there was so very much richness and spontaneity to rob the campaign trail of before YouTube started up last year–seriously, has it ever been acceptable for someone running for public office to make offensive remarks that others might reasonably overhear and tell others about?
Of course, the optimists counter-speculate that Internet video could empower everyone by allowing voters to hold candidates more directly accountable, and candidates to bypass mediators in trafficking their messages directly to the masses, eventually making professional journalism obsolete.
Now, as time passes, to me it keeps looking more and more as though the supposed "power" the blogosphere and other online communiques wield over public opinion is really just a rationalization of their undue impact on elite opinion, put forth by leaders with too much time on their hands, too little contact with the "reality-based community" outside their own circles and serious delusions of grandeur.
Alleged "strategists" tend to grossly overestimate the power of Internet speech, often by grossly underestimating the credibility thresholds and mistaking the newsgathering habits of its propagators–many of whom are younger voters. Most of us, even those engaged in political news and who spend inordinate shares of our days on the Internet, don't usually hear about anything political that's been posted online until it's broadcast on "The Daily Show" or reported by a mainstream news source, online or off–in short, until our leaders start making a big deal over it and let us know it exists.
While it may be the death of another line of communication between citizens and officials by substituting an unrepresentative online sample for the whole, the Internet is not going to be the death of the news media–sifting, highlighting and directing consumers to content is going to be more important than ever as the volume of that content continues to grow exponentially. Mathematically, it's just too much information for individuals to sort through on their own, especially when most of it is useless crap.
And though with Katie Couric talking of distinguishing her broadcast from the competition by assuming "many viewers have already scanned the headlines of the day, giving her license to jettison some stories entirely or to dispense with others in a digest," one might be better off acting as one's own gatekeeper on YouTube, I'm sure as hell not going there for my news and current affairs analysis–I'm going for the '80s music videos, the idiots in Pac-Man costumes running through libraries and, until their generous poster was shut down and another tiny spot of joy was wrenched from the entertainment-starved little lives of those of us without cable, the new episodes of "Project Runway."
I know we'll find some way to "Carry on..." but it really is a pity that, based solely on the substance and syntax of comments people post to YouTube videos, none of them have probably heard of postmodern pastiche and the argument that nothing is original anymore, therefore cultural products distributed to mass audiences are all on the table for sampling and re-tooling.
Indeed, what the politicos seem to have forgotten is that this epidemic of viral-video madness isn't exactly a new phenomenon–rather it's one Bush White House officials, to take the most recent example, have actively used not merely to smear opponents by replaying their recorded gaffes, but also to court attention: Remember Ashcroft's serenade to the press corps, or the annual Barney videos, starring staffers and the presidential pooch? But indisputable and unrivaled pearls of amateur online moviemaking though the latter are, they haven't changed the face of democracy, either by making it harrier or more huggable.
Regardless of what Internet video means for electoral freedom, I'd be more worried about politicians posting scripted films meant to look spontaneous to score points with those modern hipsters surfin' teh Internets–and not just some misguided Democratic presidential hopeful rushing onto the Senate floor in a banana suit to declare it "PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!" or Dubya and Rumsfeld delivering a "Walker: Texas Ranger"-style pummelling to an Osama-impersonator on the White House lawn, but sneakier, more plausible yet still misleading snippets, with the most successful, as always, seeping out from those with the most plump coffers.
But still, we can all find comfort in the fact that, even though perhaps no electoral race can be said to be purely local these days, it's a safe bet that most denizens of our wired nation still won't bother to show up at the polls.
And on the diplomatic front, obviously the current course isn't cutting it in the Middle East–who knows, perhaps Dick Cheney lip-synching "Rock the Casbah" into a grainy webcam might finally be the message that changes hearts and minds.
If campaigns resemble reality television, where any moment of a candidate's life can be captured on film and posted on the Web, will the last shreds of authenticity be stripped from our public officials? Will candidates be pushed further into a scripted bubble? In short, will YouTube democratize politics, or destroy it?Even Republican strategist Matthew Dowd is getting woolly, lamenting "a future where candidates must be camera-ready before they hit the road, rather than be a work in progress. 'What's happened is that politicians now have to be perfect from Day 1,' he said. 'It's taken some richness out of the political discourse.'"
Yes, because there was so very much richness and spontaneity to rob the campaign trail of before YouTube started up last year–seriously, has it ever been acceptable for someone running for public office to make offensive remarks that others might reasonably overhear and tell others about?
Of course, the optimists counter-speculate that Internet video could empower everyone by allowing voters to hold candidates more directly accountable, and candidates to bypass mediators in trafficking their messages directly to the masses, eventually making professional journalism obsolete.
Now, as time passes, to me it keeps looking more and more as though the supposed "power" the blogosphere and other online communiques wield over public opinion is really just a rationalization of their undue impact on elite opinion, put forth by leaders with too much time on their hands, too little contact with the "reality-based community" outside their own circles and serious delusions of grandeur.
Alleged "strategists" tend to grossly overestimate the power of Internet speech, often by grossly underestimating the credibility thresholds and mistaking the newsgathering habits of its propagators–many of whom are younger voters. Most of us, even those engaged in political news and who spend inordinate shares of our days on the Internet, don't usually hear about anything political that's been posted online until it's broadcast on "The Daily Show" or reported by a mainstream news source, online or off–in short, until our leaders start making a big deal over it and let us know it exists.
While it may be the death of another line of communication between citizens and officials by substituting an unrepresentative online sample for the whole, the Internet is not going to be the death of the news media–sifting, highlighting and directing consumers to content is going to be more important than ever as the volume of that content continues to grow exponentially. Mathematically, it's just too much information for individuals to sort through on their own, especially when most of it is useless crap.
And though with Katie Couric talking of distinguishing her broadcast from the competition by assuming "many viewers have already scanned the headlines of the day, giving her license to jettison some stories entirely or to dispense with others in a digest," one might be better off acting as one's own gatekeeper on YouTube, I'm sure as hell not going there for my news and current affairs analysis–I'm going for the '80s music videos, the idiots in Pac-Man costumes running through libraries and, until their generous poster was shut down and another tiny spot of joy was wrenched from the entertainment-starved little lives of those of us without cable, the new episodes of "Project Runway."
I know we'll find some way to "Carry on..." but it really is a pity that, based solely on the substance and syntax of comments people post to YouTube videos, none of them have probably heard of postmodern pastiche and the argument that nothing is original anymore, therefore cultural products distributed to mass audiences are all on the table for sampling and re-tooling.
Indeed, what the politicos seem to have forgotten is that this epidemic of viral-video madness isn't exactly a new phenomenon–rather it's one Bush White House officials, to take the most recent example, have actively used not merely to smear opponents by replaying their recorded gaffes, but also to court attention: Remember Ashcroft's serenade to the press corps, or the annual Barney videos, starring staffers and the presidential pooch? But indisputable and unrivaled pearls of amateur online moviemaking though the latter are, they haven't changed the face of democracy, either by making it harrier or more huggable.
Regardless of what Internet video means for electoral freedom, I'd be more worried about politicians posting scripted films meant to look spontaneous to score points with those modern hipsters surfin' teh Internets–and not just some misguided Democratic presidential hopeful rushing onto the Senate floor in a banana suit to declare it "PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!" or Dubya and Rumsfeld delivering a "Walker: Texas Ranger"-style pummelling to an Osama-impersonator on the White House lawn, but sneakier, more plausible yet still misleading snippets, with the most successful, as always, seeping out from those with the most plump coffers.
But still, we can all find comfort in the fact that, even though perhaps no electoral race can be said to be purely local these days, it's a safe bet that most denizens of our wired nation still won't bother to show up at the polls.
And on the diplomatic front, obviously the current course isn't cutting it in the Middle East–who knows, perhaps Dick Cheney lip-synching "Rock the Casbah" into a grainy webcam might finally be the message that changes hearts and minds.
posted by Holly at 4:04 AM
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