Media & Social Media 20 Jun 2007 11:08 am
Sick of election 2008 sound bites already? Maybe viral videos are the cure.
I’ll admit it. An article by Katharine Seelye in last Thursday’s New York Times is the first in a long time to get me interested in the presidential primaries. I don’t think I’m alone in my apathy, though. The 18-to-35-year-old demographic is notorious for truancy at the polls and an aversion to televised presidential debates.
But I feel a little differently about this upcoming race, recently dubbed the YouTube Election, because Seelye brought it to my attention that YouTube is partnering with CNN on the Republican and Democratic primary debates.
What does that mean? Instead of the robotic “questions from the audience” we’re used to, this year’s questions will come to the candidates via YouTube video submissions. To paint a clearer picture: we could conceivably see Hillary Clinton field a question about healthcare in the form of a homemade rap video while Anderson Cooper moderates. 20 to 30 videos will be selected from the submissions, which must be 30 seconds or less.
Freedom from content regulation, format and rehearsal are part of the reason YouTube and its videos are popular. The same is not often said of televised political debates or presidential candidates, which is what makes this situation so interesting to me.
The addition of a visual and interactive element to the debates marks an advance from the last election, when blogs were the “new thing”. The fact that YouTube was invented in 2005 and in two years has established a powerful presence in the political process should make anyone sit up and take notice. Until this election, YouTube was mostly a forum for broadcasting political slipups. Case in point: Remember last year, when Senator George Allen of Virginia was caught on tape at a campaign event using a racial slur when referring to a college student in the audience? Maybe not, but it shot to the top of YouTube’s “most viewed” videos almost immediately, and from there blasted across the front page of the Washington Post and numerous cable and network TV news stations. This is why YouTube is so powerful. If you’re not watching it you are getting your news late.
But blogs and YouTube citations are apparently not a high enough level of citizen involvement anymore. Our media and our politicians seem to agree that voters want their questions answered (literally) and will respond to a more interactive and visually stimulating debate. It’s probably true - the tone of the “what’s your Iraq exit strategy?” question we’ve all heard before would change if, prior to it, we watched 30 seconds of related video footage.
CNN will decide which videos air during the debates, but maybe the spontaneous style of YouTube users and their questions will force the candidates to come up with less mechanical responses. Even if the network chooses only the tamest submissions to air, it doesn’t really matter. More than 100 million clips are viewed on YouTube every day, and according to Hitwise, this past February YouTube traffic surpassed visitors to all TV networks. Combined. It’s likely that more people will discuss issues on YouTube, and for a longer period of time, than will tune in to the debates. And if CNN plays it too safe with the question selection, there could be a backlash from YouTubers.
Of the five debates shown so far this political season, Seelye reports that the majority of viewers were older than 55. Will more young people watch the debates because of the new format? I think this direct engagement of the YouTube community ensures a higher level of involvement from younger voters at least during the primaries, which may prompt more of us to care once the race really begins. Will more young people vote in the next election? Stay tuned.
Two great articles on this topic:
The YouTube Election, by James Wolcott of Vanity Fair
Candidly Speaking: The YouTube Election, by Ryan Lizza of the New York Times
Posted by Rebecca
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