Main concept: Politics Meets Popular Culture
Minor concepts: Shift from Viewers to Participators, Joe Trippi Helps Shape New Politics, Blogging “Spoils” Government
The main idea in this chapter is that people have become more focused on popular culture and less interested in politics, so in order to generate more interest in politics, the two must meet. One example of how this has been attempted is the action of the True Majority Group. Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream founded this organization to increase voter participation and rally support behind a progressive agenda and advertised by producing an anti-Bush spoof of The Apprentice on the Internet (206). An important consideration of this video and other similar attempts are to get the ideas into the broadest possible circulation (207).
Previous media communicated from one to many, but new media involves participation, reciprocity, and peer-to-peer interaction (208). As the previous media shifts to new media, citizens will shift from sitting on the couch watching political debates to watching debates, commentaries, and spoofs and then following online watching more information, accessing data, and participating in polls and debates. This community will participate more and rely less on official experts (209).
Joe Trippi, Howard Dean’s campaign manager, wanted to harness emerging grassroots power and looked to the Internet in a time of digital culture (209). He used meetup.com to organize rallies and blogging to make the campaign more personal. Trippi argues that the Internet makes us smarter, more involved, and better informed, while TV left us dumb, disengaged, and disconnected (210).
Blogging “spoils” the American government as bloggers pool information, go to each other as experts, debate and scrutinize information (215). Bloggers track down information that has already occurred, but unlike spoilers, bloggers also attempt to shape future events (216). Blogging is also used as an outlet for bloggers to express their discontent with news media and politics. Blogging also brings about a political division in that people with similar ideas tend to visit like blogs, so that political debate doesn’t occur to the optimum of Internet capabilities (216).
Ideas to think about: Does popular culture when combined with politics really motivate people to vote? Which media source reaches the most viewers: TV or the Internet? Why did Trippi’s digital political revolution fail? Are political blogs useful if they only attract like-minded bloggers?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I'm curious to know if you read political blogs and if you do, whether they influence your voting. Did you vote on Saturday? Dr. L
No I don't read political blogs. I wish I did but between work and school, I don't really have the time. What does influence my political opinions are what I learn in my political science classes (it's my minor). I have had to learn that I need to figure out what my teacher is biased toward and then interpret the information I get in class. I did not vote because I had a school related event to attend that day and I'm registered in Jefferson parish. Another important thing that influences college age voters is money. A lot of college kids aren't willing to drive 9 hours to go home if they live far away just to vote. It takes time and money to fill up the tank.
Post a Comment