Technopolitics
Over at USC, which is one of the places I work, my friends at the Knight New Media Center are holding a four day conference on the Internet strategies of the '08 political campaigns. As Knight director Vikki Porter says of the moment:
"With more than 18 months until Election Day 2008, it is already the most digitized election in U.S. history—with all the challenges and opportunities that distinction implies. Candidates have built their websites, hired (and fired) their bloggers, joined social networking communities and staked their virtual claims in Second Life."
A ripe and juicy subject. Even better, a number of my brilliant current and former journalism grad students are blogging it. Here's their group blog. Check it out over the rest of the week as the conference continues and offer some of your comments to let them know someone is reading.
There's also this related link from L.A. Observed. All about Greater L.A -- and especially Beverly Hills-- being the cash mother lode of politics. Both liberal and conservative and everything in between.
April 19th, 2007 at 6:44 am
Moveon.org and the Swift Boaters showed the power of technology in elections. Maybe we will “enjoy” triple doses of them in the next election.
April 19th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Actually the “Swift-liars” are already back. They’re running an ad on FOX blasting Pelosi for her trip to Syria. Its working too. She’s now only the most popular pol in DC!
April 19th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Who is Phil Noble. Does he get those “$100 Laptops” that all those kids in India are going to have from the same store where Newt Gingrich was going to the ones he’d give to poor kids as part of his “Anti-Poverty” Program.
I didn’t see Aaaron Spelling’s name on the donors from “90210″!
April 19th, 2007 at 10:34 am
The $100 laptop:
http://www.laptop.org/
April 19th, 2007 at 11:22 am
The Knight New Media Center project looks very interesting. Certainly no surprise to see the various candidates trolling through So. Cal. as a giant ATM.
Of topic, but has anyone here been watching or listening to the Alberto Gonzales testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary? It’s ‘half time’ right now. So far, I’d say that Alberto’s quest to regain the confidence of the Senate is about as good as a lobster trying to make nice with a pot of boil water.
April 19th, 2007 at 11:23 am
…’boiling’ water…
April 19th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
thanks for the shout-out, Marc!
I’ve begun aggregating tons of relevant links for those interested in the politics/cyberspace (or whatever you wanna call it) meme.
more in this post on the Knight blog:
http://www.knightnewmediacenter.org/covering_politics/
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:43 pm
As we plan our strategies for the coming election, be aware the other side is readily at work on theirs as well. One of the more insidious is a new postal rate plan, written by Time Warner.
the proposed changes to the postal rates”, established during George Washington’s administration. Basically large publishers would fare better ( they wrote this bill ) at the expense of smaller publishers ( think of the”East India Company” in the 1700’s. The tax on tea for the colonists was higher than that the East India Company, and we know where that lead, a tea party in Boston harbor). Here’s a link with more information
http://action.freepress.net/campaign/postal
People need to understand what the age of enlightenment was and how it lead to the birth of our country. They would be less apt to follow some sly charlatan with a bag of cash and a fancy slogan. We would live in a better place. Education, it seems to be the key. This is a major issue, similar to “Net Neutrality”, where the big guys get preference and the small guys take it in the shorts, thus choking the smaller publication, and then they will control all that we see and hear.
see my cartoon on this topic at my website;
http://www.whatnowtoons.com