The postings from the regular crew tend to be brief, which is but one of the reasons I've begun contributing to the site. Another is that I'm permitted to cross-post the work for them here. In any case, it's always nice to be asked, and I'm excited to be a part of what I'm sure will be a tremendously successful endeavor.
I'll be doing what some might mistake as extending the Nettertainment brand by covering the political side of online video. Conflating entertainment and politics has always been this site's mission, as it is our current coin of our land, especially in the last two months leading up to an especially hard-rocking midterm election.
Hence, for The Daily Reel, Politi-flicks.
Political film on the web is an already explosive outgrowth of the blogosphere, in both the propagatory and inflammatory sense. Not only are so many major political weblogs regularly featuring YouTube empowered web video, but mastery of political video on the web is fast becoming a make-or-break discipline for political campaigns.
Brief, digestible video of political candidates in action hits the web within hours, even minutes of being shot. This is not waiting around to see what the newsreporter writes in your morning paper about the campaign appearance yesterday afternoon, this is getting a relatively unfiltered, often unvarnished look at the candidate him or herself.
A study in contrasts: one candidate benefits enormously from spontaneous online video, another suffers.
In his Quixotic quest to replace Bush-supporting Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, Ned Lamont chose to challenge the incumbent in the Democratic Primary. Lamont was heavily covered by essentially amateur political activists who put many moments on digital videotape and posted selections online. He grew more and more comfortable being recorded, with YouTube listing 237 videos found under his name and counting. Aside from local appearances and TV news shots, he's seen playing boogie-woogie piano at a neighborhood event, and interviewed by Stephen Colbert.
On the flip side, Virginia Senator George Allen, now in a tough re-election fight against challenger Jim Webb, found himself accused of racism after being captured at an event calling the videographer, an American of Indian descent, "macaca," and asking the audience to welcome him to America.
I have no doubt that we'll see more and more shaping of such videos by the campaigns themselves, exerting greater control over when their candidates are videotaped in action and by whom, making the planned seem spontaneous and then seeding video online in all sorts of clever ways. As well they should, especially if their candidate has something to hide.
For now, enjoy the sudden availability of political candidates in their unvarnished Internet video form. It's freewheeling democracy the way our nation's founders intended -- had Benjamin Franklin invented the QuickTime codec and USB.
No comments:
Post a Comment