Experts explain YouTube election
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The political ad that aired on YouTube entitled “Yes, We Can” for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama was shown to West Virginia University students and faculty to answer a question of how the Internet is affecting journalism and politics. The ad displays a number of celebrities singing a song written by Will I. Am of the Black Eyed Peas, who was inspired by Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech.
Phillip de Vellis, who is a political analyst and known for his own YouTube political ad “Vote Different,” commented on the clip.
“I cringed the first time I saw this,” de Vellis said. “The last thing a Democratic candidate needs is to have a political ad with celebrities in it, but it is a good ad – it gives you the warm fuzzies that seem to attract a younger audience, and if you think about it, the older generation that would have issues with it wouldn’t be using this medium, and so, wouldn’t see it.”
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton’s demographics are that of the older population, where as the polls have shown a large support for Obama from those who are under 30 years old. The five journalists of digital media, who spoke to an estimated 500 students and faculty members Thursday in the Mountainlair Ballroom, explained the reasoning for his support among the young is the Internet.
“As 1960 was known as the first television election, 2008 will be the year of the YouTube election,” P.I. Reed Journalism School dean Maryanne Reed said.
Michael Tomasky was moderator for the evening. He is a graduate of WVU and the editor of GuardianAmerica.com, the U.S.-based Web site of the Guardian newspaper in England.
“As dean Reed said, 1960 was the first television election,” Tomasky said. “People who listened to the presidential debate on the radio thought that Richard Nixon won; people who watched it thought that John F. Kennedy won. That is the power of an image. This (2008) is the first race where a new medium is inserting itself.”
Matthew Yglesias, who was hired to be a blogger for the Atlantic Monthly, explained that early in the political campaign, it sounded like Clinton was going to win.
“If you think you will lose, you want to come up with something that will push the envelope – that is why Obama has been utilizing the Internet,” Yglesias said.
Terence Samuel, the deputy editor of TheRoot.com, an online magazine published by The Washington Post and aimed at African-American readers, agreed that it was only a matter of time for politics to start using the Internet.
“The Internet is all about audience engagement – intense interaction, and that is what the candidates are spending all this money to do. About $4 million a month,” Samuel said.
A question-and-answer session followed the discussion. The question of journalism’s future was raised, to which Abbi Tatton, the first Internet reporter for CNN, explained that the journalism world needs to incorporate the Internet and realize its journalistic abilities.
“Take the Virginia Tech shooting, for example. We would have never got the images we did if it weren’t for digital cameras and the Internet. We had a look from every single building on that campus and saw a different angle,” Tatton said. “Internet isn’t going to replace journalism, it will add on to it.”
Ross Douthat, a senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly and a blogger for TheAtlantic.com, also commented on the question.
“You have to look at it as five or six daily columnists on the site,” Douthat said. “The theory (for incorporating political blogging) was to supplement the magazine. The audience can go to the blog for up-to-the-minute, quick opinion information, then go to the magazine to get the long, in-depth version and chew it over.”
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