September 25, 2007
Edwards to Announce Eventful Visit
The Edwards campaign is to announce Eventful visit this week.
Large metropolitan areas such as
First, Dixon started to mobilize his friends to support the requested visit of Edwards in Columbus through the Eventful website, a web-based-event-planning site. Then, Dixon continued his actions on Facebook and MySpace. On Facebook, 800 friends joined the event to help push Columbus to victory in the Eventful challenge. John Edwards is expected to visit Columbus in early October.
Shawn Dixon asserts he supports Edwards partially because of plan to revitalize rural America. For too long, candidates have been flying from coast to coast raising money, but ignoring the mostly rural, middle of the nation. Dixon used the power of the Web to organize people to demand the appearance of a presidential contender. In the future, social networking sites will be used to force candidates to face voters concerns because Facebook and Eventful provide a tool for people to unite and create political clout. Dixon is one of the first, but certainly will not be the last the harness this power.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
September 24, 2007
MTV does Politics
MTV in conjunction with MySpace is begining presidential online dialogues.
John Edwards was the first candidate to participate in this joint venture, and most of the candidates are scheduled to take part in this experiment. In addition to presidential dialogues MTV is diving head first into Election ’08 with other ventures.
With all the success of social networking sites it was only a matter of time before MTV launched their own version. ThinkMTV.com is their political brainchild described as a cross between MySpace and YouTube. Staying true to its demographics, ThinkMTV.com is certainly aimed at younger generations. ThinkMTV.com provokes political involvement by compiling a list of contemporary issues and having various ways to connect to the topic. The topics range from discrimination, environment, drugs, religion, health, sex, war, poverty etc… Your profile allows you to advertise what issues are important you and show support through videos, blogs, organizations, action projects and online groups. Each topic also comes with information and current news relevant to the subject to help educate and politically engage interested individuals.
This site coordinates with MTV’s ‘Choose or Lose’ campaign providing links to volunteer opportunities, campaign sites and registering to vote. What distinguishes ThinkMTV.com is they want to “reward” you for your political action. They go one step further as you participate on the site and in your community and allow you to accumulate “badges”. With a series of different incentives the badges can potentially win you access to private events, public exposure through publications and even meetings with celebrities and other activists. ThinkMTV.com isn’t’ just this week’s newest social networking site, but a fresh way for young voters to overcome the common feelings of political ineffectiveness.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
September 19, 2007
YouTube Spreads to Australia
Australia is about to elect a new House of Representatives. In the US the Internet is one of the key tools in campaigns, but this medium is dramatically playing a larger role in the political race down under.
The Federal Labor party wants the political leaders to debate on YouTube during the election campaign. The Prime Minister himself, John Howard, leader of the Liberal political party, supports the role that the Internet can hold in the democratic process. The Prime Minister contends, “the Internet can provide an uninterrupted, open and direct channel between decision makers and voters”.
The entire Australian political class seems to hope that cyber democracy will re-invent the political process. Peter Garrett, a Australian Labor Party leader asserts, “whether we are communicating information and policies to people, or whether we’re hearing back from people at the grassroots level about what their issues and concerns are, the web is going to play a really really critical role”.
The Internet will make the Austrailian political process more democratic and interactive. Voters will be able to converse with candidates through YouTube. Voters will interact directly with politicians by uploading video and text responses on the political parties’ channels on YouTube, and candidates can respond to these videos. All the political parties have their own dedicated channels on YouTube, and many politicians now have a profile on MySpace and other social networking sites.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
September 17, 2007
Negative Campaigning 'Net Style
Inevitably negative campaigning has spread to the web. This election cycle has seen anonymous videos posted to YouTube, and in recent weeks Web sites have surfaced that take aim at particular candidates.
The Club for Growth PAC launched a website targeting Mike Huckabee. TaxHikeMike.com is their attempt to criticize the former Arkansas governor’s fiscal record. The website features Huckabee’s tax history along with a number of videos, editorials and quotes. Another example, early last week a website, Phonyfred.com, was launched which featured an unflattering representation of presidential candidate Fred Thompson. To maximize the effect the website was unveiled the same week Thompson announced his candidacy and hit the campaign trail. Speculation has arisen as to who was behind the construction of the site. It has been revealed that the site can be linked to a South Carolina consulting firm with ties to Mitt Romney
Controversy aside, the web has become an asset and versatile tool for political activity. It has taken the negative advertisements or false information to another level by making it easier to generate, harder to discern fact from fiction, and more difficult to control. The Internet has become a “free space” for campaign organizers and individuals who wish to voice their opinions through blogs, videos, web pages, etc…to do so. Political propaganda can be used to create a distraction and divert harmful attention from oneself towards another. However agitators must be careful that bringing attention to an opponent does not counteract and end up working in the challengers favor. While the ethical debate on negative campaigning continues you can be sure more websites with disreputable intentions will surface as the race intensifies.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
September 10, 2007
Battlefield ‘Net: China Wages Cyber War?
This month several nations have accused China of hacking into foreign network systems.
The US Department of Defense claimed China’s cyber military hacked sensitive sites. After the US, Great Britain was the target of Chinese hackers towards its system of computer information. Allegedly, these Internet attacks are operated by the Red Hackers of China, aka China Eagle Union or Honkers Union of China. Since the end of 1990s, this government sponsored group of Chinese hackers has become masters in computer intrusion and impairment of Websites. Taiwan and Japan have also claimed to be victims of similar attacks.
In 1997, the Japanese computer system was targeted on the 60th anniversary of the launching of Sino-Japanese war. Indonesia, where anti-Chinese riots took place, has also been punished by the “Chinese new army”. In May, 1999, the accidental bombing of the embassy of China in Belgrade, during the striking of NATO against the Serbia, sparked the attack of many American governmental department websites.
The Chinese seem to employ the ‘Net as a new means to act in a controversial situation. As doing so, it brings conflict in to a new the dimension, the web. The groups of Chinese hackers are part of a tolerated nationalist nebula and manipulated by the Communist Party which, by playing on the grain of nationalism, tries to give itself a new legitimacy. Thus, the Red Hackers asserts to act so as to defend “respectability and the integrity of Chinese fatherland”. The Internet is no longer the information super highway, but it is becoming the battlefield of the 21st century.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
September 06, 2007
The Necessity of the Thompson Tease
The summer of ’07 has been noted as the slow tease of Fred Thompson.
While the declarded GOP contenders were slugging it out in early primary states, debates, and state fairs the former Senator tormented political reporters as his team “not so quietly” laid the ground work for a serious campaign for the Republican nomination.Pundits have declared that Thompson may be this cycle’s Wesley Clark.
The difference is Team Thompson has put in months of work, although rocky at times, before the official announcement. This campaign may become the textbook example for a candidate entering the race late in the cycle. The major contenders on both sides announced their intentions early and went to work organizing, but the former Senator did not have the luxury of time to follow this model. Instead, Thompson let the steps taken to organize his campaign serve as his notice of intent to run. The Thompson tease was more of a way to buy time to organize a campaign then an opportunity to search his soul whether to run or not. This leads us to today, and the Tennessean’s much anticipated official campaign announcement.
The Thompson announcement was via a 15 minute webcast reportedly at the urging of Newt Gingrich. Not exactly groundbreaking, but the newly minted ‘official’ candidate has frequently utilized the ‘Net over the summer months. His strategy implies that he hopes to reach people directly instead of being filtered by the news media establishment. Using a fresh and more personal way of connecting with supporters online is characteristic of Thompson fashion. For the past few months, although not officially in the race, Thompson has stayed visible by being active on the internet through numerous video casts and blogs. Fred08.com, the official campaign website, allows you to “connect” with Thompson through a number of different alternative media outlets including Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and Del.icio.us. He has utilized the ‘Net as his personal outlet to educate and stay connected to his supporters and potential voters. The Internet is the ultimate organizing tool, and at this stage in the game it appears Thompson enjoys utilizing the Web as a major campaign tool.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 05:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
September 04, 2007
Mitt uses JumpCut.com to go Dean 2.0?
Jumpcut.com blasted on to the political scene this week when the Romney campaign asked its supporters to create their own political advertisements on Jumpcut that the campaign promised to put on air.
And they responded – big time. This is the next step in online political innovation – call it Dean 2.0.
In just 24 hours this new site has clearly gone viral and is featured in many blogs along with garnering the focus of the MSM. As of this afternoon over 50 videos had been created and linked to the "Team Mitt: Create Your Own Ad!" challenge.
This site allows the campaigns (or anyone else) to unload content – video, graphics, audio, etc. – and then users can remix the content to mash up their own ads…all for free. Romney supporters will vote for the best spot and the campaign will purchase a major media buy to feature the winning ad.
Alex Castellanos, Senior Adviser and media strategist to Governor Romney, said, "It is truly groundbreaking for amateur, grassroots supporters to so directly assist in introducing their candidate to the American people. This contest demonstrates Romney for President's commitment to using unique and democratizing online tools to engage voters and harness the extraordinary enthusiasm of its growing team of supporters."
Conservative bloggers and GOP Internet activists have lavished praise on the Romney campaign for taking a risk and utilizing the power of the Web. Until recently it has been the Democrats who dominated innovation on the ‘Net. Republican internet guru Patrick Ruffini, who is pleased to see a GOP candidate integrating the web into his campaign, said “Mitt Romney’s create- your-own-ad contest is exactly the kind of online innovation I’ve been waiting for out of the Republican candidates for President.”
Jumpcut is based out of San Francisco and was acquired by Yahoo on Oct. 2, 2006.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
