Media criticism in context: “Yes, it would be nice if the press spent less time on inanities and more time on how candidates planned to actually run the country. But this view of the media is just too simplistic.” Via Salon.
Henry Copeland of Blogads: “As the social media winter looms, the winners will be the folks with strong relationships, low overheads, a strong commitment on innovation rather than coat-tail riding, and, most of all, a indelible passion for the business. We’re looking forward to seeing you after the bust.”
Here’s a wild one, courtesy of Wired’s Danger Room: what happens when an aerial drone from Georgia (the one in the Eastern Hemisphere) runs afoul of the Russion air force?
Observations: 1) the Georgians have unmanned aerial vehicles??? 2) A MiG on your 6 is just as bad today as it was in Vietnam. Freaky stuff. At least it wasn’t a pelican — those suckers are REALLY dangerous.
Combine (1) this rule of Digital Omnipresence with (2) the rules of Off-the-Record/On the Record (i.e. — nothing is ever truly, reliably, off-the-record), then you’ve got Bittergate.
What’s the upshot? Campaign managers should consider, on a daily basis, reminding candidates of their Digital Miranda rights — call it the “Macaca Warning”:
“You have the right to be recorded — and should expect you are being videotaped and recorded 24/7. Anything you say can and will be used against you by your opponents. Beware that something that sounds OK in one setting may be a gaffe in another setting…”
Excellent idea! e.politics has been fascinated by the effects of portable video and audio recording on politics from the beginnings of the site in the Antediluvian days of 2006, and I’m damn jealous that Dan thought of that one before I did. Soon, only robots will be clean enough to run for office, and our fate as a species will at long last be sealed.
Jake Tapper’s smoke detector goes off at ABC News. “That fact simply highlights a growing narcissistic disease within the campaign press corps in which members increasingly see themselves as central players in the unfolding political production. Specifically, with regard to the Democratic primary, the press clearly views itself as the third candidate on the stage.”
Okay, it’s not exactly a robot zombie army, but it might have a similar effect on the world of political action — an email arrived today from the Obama campaign about a training program they’re starting which aims to educate a cadre of activists in the essentials of community organizing. Using Obama’s own organizing experience as a hook, the campaign pitches the Obama Organizing Fellowships as “a program that’s going to train a new generation of leaders — not only to help us win this election, but to help strengthen our democracy in communities across the country.”
The message doesn’t say how many Fellows will be trained or where, but it does give you the opportunity to make a donation, to invite a friend to help or even to volunteer to house a Fellow. Obviously the campaign is investing in this project in order to help get Obama elected, and a Fellow’s most important job will be to help that task along (note that the program is a tool for the general election at this point, not the primaries), but after that they’ll be turned loose to wander the Earth on their own, where some will no doubt use their new-found powers for good or ill.
Seriously, with an unprecedented number of people politically activated this year, and with the campaigns as well as outside groups like my friends at the New Organizing Institute training campaign workers and volunteers in the essentials of political action online and off, I can’t help but think that we’re going to be left with a ton of new people fired up about politics and armed with the tools to put their ideas to work. Some will fail and others will lose interest, but the rest may just start to change the ways things are done locally and up the political chain. THAT would be robot-zombie-army fun to watch.
Crowd Enabling, the Obama way. A mighty bold claim: “Even if Obama fails to achieve his goal of becoming President of the United States, I predict he will have a deeper and more powerful understanding of the American people than anyone in the history of politics.”
Quote of the week: “‘It’s a love tap compared to the Wu-Tang fist of fury that’s coming at this guy in the fall,’ said Rick Wilson, a Republican media consultant.”
Facebook Launches Band Pages. “MySpace also might start to get worried — I’m sure I’m not the only one who uses that site solely for auditioning bands.”
If there’s any piece of the primary season frenzy that seems designed to drive voters insane, it’s the unsolicited phone calls. The ones from real people are bad enough, but robocalls were clearly invented by someone with a deep hatred of the human race. With that in mind, I’m pleased to present a couple of recent examples of robocalls working against campaigns in New Hampshire. First, Romney loses a vote: (more…)
Well, they’re not actually competing directly for anything other than our attention, but both Mitt Romney and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have launched campaigns lately to leverage the creative power of their supporters. Romney’s is the most recent — reader Jake Davison just passed along a message from the campaign touting a new create-a-video-ad contest using Yahoo’s Jumpcut service. Romney’s folks provide stills and clips a la the Chevy Tahoe campaign for director-wannabes to use in their own creations, and future ad geniuses can also create their own audio/video clips as long as they don’t break copyright. The chosen ad will be used on the television machine. The choice of Yahoo’s platform is particularly interesting considering that the RNC has recently snagged the former director of that company’s election strategy. My submission will involve lots of robots — the only way to do this particular candidate justice. [Note: also picked up by Jose Antonio Vargas and tPrez today.]
A few days ago, the DSCC also joined the social media wars with a create-a-bumper-sticker contest called “Bump Up Our Majority” (get it?). Voting ends tonight, so you kids better jump right on that. Looking at the four initial examples they provide, let’s hope some better suggestions come in from the unwashed masses. Actually, these contests do provide an excellent example of a good reason to turn to your supporters for creative content — they may not always do better than the professionals, but it’s hard for ALL of them to do worse.
Just like the lolcats phenomenon — 2 much Internets indeed. “If cheezburger’s plan unfolds successfully, we’ll soon have a site that combines cute animals plus caption-writing plus a voting competition. That should be just about unstoppable.” Where’s that damn robot army when you need it?
E-Stonia Under Attack. Real robot warfare breaks out — “And if you thought that terrorists headquartered in ungovernable bits of the undeveloped world were our worst problem, think again.”
Don’t worry, here are some Democratic and Republican presidential candidates who just might save us all (before you scoff, think: how many brains would a zombie Ronald Reagan REALLY need to eat to survive?)
