Flattening of Politics -YouTube
Technology and the internet is changing the way knowledge and content are being created, shared and debated and also challenging the notion of "content is king" . Three companies that have done well during the post -bubble resurgence are Google , Apple and YouTube . None of them create content , they distribute it ......YouTube is one of the latest kids on the block which has created a huge market cap riding on the back of content created by others . Founded in Feb 2005 , YouTube is a popular free sharing video website which lets users upload, view, and share video clips .
Politics has recently found an application for the YouTube . Political candidates for the 2008 Presidential election have started using YouTube as a channel for advertising their candidacy. Voters can easily look up propaganda and make videos supporting or demoting presidential candidates of their own, specifically those for Obama and Hillary Clinton .
YouTube creates an avenue for easy distribution of campaign material , therefore changing the rules of the election game significantly. If you do a search on "political campaigns" in the YouTube website , the amount of available content is significant
I am hoping to see Indian political parties use this as a campaign tool within the next ten years (ten years because it will take that much time for a critical mass of internet penetration in our rural areas for it to be of use to the political parties ) . Hopefully if political content is shared seamlessly, the significant by-products of such a process are :
a) Politicians will be forced to promise what they can deliver
b) Responsibility and accountability in the campaign process (now the entire content will be available on the world wide web and hence the political parties cannot have selective amnesia)
c) Issues of national importance can be documented , archived and retrieved by a common voter , who can then use all this data to make an informed choice .
c) Issues of national importance can be documented , archived and retrieved by a common voter , who can then use all this data to make an informed choice .
The YouTube has the potential to change the way political campaigns work and hopefully it will make a big difference to the political processes in our country........
1 comment:
I agree with you Niladri. Internet has created a social platform for those with an opinion to meet in new communities. The availability of Internet as a communication media is changing the way a) Which things are communicated , b) why these are communicated , c)how they impact opinions on matters relating to public policy. Having said that I do believe that there is a lots of verbal diaherea out here with no QC.
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