One Example:
Most people know that MTV implemented rock the vote to increase the number of people between the ages of 18 and 24 to actually go out and vote during the 2004 election.
This time around, MTV has teamed up with MySpace for "Presidential Dialogues."
Basically, the all of the major Democratic and Republican candidates for POTUS will answer "candid and unfiltered" questions asked by young viewers. The events will take place on college campuses but will be aired on MTV, MTVu as well as MySpace and MTV.com. Questions can be submitted via MySpaceIM, cell phone, and email.
The purpose of this is to allow home viewers along with the live audience interact with the candidates in real time.
"For years, young people have trusted MTV to inform and engage them on the issues that matter most, from politics to sexual health to the environment," said MTV President Christina Norman.
scary...
And, who is going to be the first candidate to participate?
John Edwards, of course.
Another Example:
The first online-only Democratic presidential debate took place recently. Hosted by Yahoo!, the Huffington Post and Slate, the candidates were interviewed and their responses were aired via internet. 3 out of 4 topics of the questions were chosen by voters, and the last topic was a wild card in which a question from any topic could be asked.
According to a Yahoo! poll afterwards on who won, Barack Obama received the most votes with Hillary Clinton as a close 2nd.
It will be interesting to see the affects of these "digital age" political events... I think it is a bit too early to begin to analyze what these particular events will cause, but I also believe that they will serve to get more people informed and involved, at least those who watch MTV.
In other news, there was an interesting story on NYTimes.com today about the "fallacy of the netroots."
And the Politico broke a story about censorship on behalf of the Clinton campaign with regards to GQ magazine.
Most interestingly, though, Alan Combs believes that Ahmadinejad is a conservative.
And finally, my thoughts:
I know this is not relatively recent, but still...
Rudy Giuliani's wife called during his speech to the NRA? What?
2 comments:
Young voters are easily swayed, but the thing is, very few of them feel enough of the fervor to actually go out and vote. MTV and MySpace are undoubtedly very powerful tools, though I doubt that the adults watching the MTV debate (and consequently tearing the candidates and their responses apart) will be swayed by anything that comes from these Presidential Dialogues. I think that bloggers can blog and news media can do their thing, but when it all boils down, people have made up their minds. These debates work only to strengthen the foundation that each candidate has already created. The sway voters will make up their own minds on their own terms. I doubt many will use MTV as their primary source of information.
I hope more gets done/answered in this discussion than the YouTube discussion. I felt like I didn't learn anything new. And the aftermath of whole event involved the media highlighted the "zany" questioners. Just felt like a cheap marketing ploy in the end.
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