Teeing Up the First YouTube Debate
Tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern on CNN (see the set embedded below) the first YouTube debate will kick off. While many are upset that CNN is choosing a black box approach for determining which of the nearly 3,000 submitted video questions will be asked of the candidates, just about everyone is interested to see whether the event can help democratize political discourse.
The key will be finding questions that are different from the conventional mainstream media fare, but not too idiosyncratic, off-topic, or sophomoric. We’ll definitely be watching. Let us know if you do too. In the meantime, here are some interesting comments:
David Bohrman, the Washington bureau chief for CNN: “This way, every single question has a chance to get into this debate,” he said. “I know we’ll be second-guessed to death. But I want there to be more uses of new media, this year and in 2012. So it’s important that we not screw it up and have politicians say, ‘I’m never going to do one of those again.’ ” (New York Times)
“Do you see the duality here? YouTube is at once a disintermediator for democracy and democracy’s greatest show.” (Steve Bryant, Reel Pop)
“Dan Rather, also on the broadcast, agreed that no journalist would venture to ask [a question about Bill Clinton's infidelity]. ‘Candidates do hate — genuinely hate — audience participation,” Rather said, “because they like to control the environment.’” (L.A. Times)
Popular
Recent
Network
- The Bannen Way Hits 8.4M Streams Since its Crackle Debut [NewTeeVee]
- The Tangled Web: PA Semi, Processors, and Magic [TheAppleBlog]
- OpenOffice.org by the Numbers [OStatic]
- Q&A: Stewart Butterfield on the Launch of Glitch [GigaOM]
- Coworking Stories: Manchester’s MadLab [WebWorkerDaily]
- The Best & Worst Biofuel Startups [Earth2Tech]
© 2010 The GigaOM Network. Marketing consulting by ACS.
This could be a really defining opportunity if someone steps up to the plate (to keep the sports metaphors coming) but I place my bet on bullshit, nothing but empty silly bs, from candidates. Meanwhile the hardest hitting questions won’t get asked of course – it’ll be bread and butter topics like health care, the cost of Iraq, global warming and maybe habeas corpus. Given the state of the world, these twits need to be asked the kinds of questions that should melt any illusion that things in this country are anywhere near ok. imho
The political and democratic productivity of this will depend on which filtered and selected video questions get asked. While it is entirely antithetical to the democratic nature of YouTube to selectively filter the videos, this structure still has potential to break new ground in the political realm of our expanding participatory culture.
While I have my reservations about the selection process, this is the biggest contest YouTube has hosted yet. Here, selected videos will be seen by the biggest audience any “wining” video has had before. As such, I’m surprised the likes of “Obama Girl” and “Hott4Hill” haven’t put together a short, choreographed, midriffed video asking about Iraq, health care, or renewable energy. The face (and belly) time could be huge!
Ah screw it, after a whole day of reading about these debates all over the web I guess maybe it will be at least a little fun to watch :) sorry to be such a blowhard in comments.