YouTube = Campaign Finance Reform
Good Washington Post article on the effect that YouTube might have on campaign advertising.
If any teenager can put up a video for or against a candidate, and persuade other people to watch that video, the center of gravity could shift to masses of people with camcorders and passable computer skills. And if people increasingly distrust the mainstream media, they might be more receptive to messages created by ordinary folks.
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Even the seemingly simple act of posting footage of a politician’s interview on “Meet the Press” or “The Daily Show” has a viral quality, because it can be seen by far more people than watched during a single broadcast.
The positive is that in such a world, more money does not mean more/better ads, deflating the corrupting influence of interest groups and PACs and large campaign donors and candidate fundraising. It is in the nature of the Internet to “treat as damage and route around”, and I think this is another case of that.
The negative is more complicated. I believe that what gives a clip viral qualities is often something that taps deeply into the irrational parts of the human psyche. Sure, the same can be said of the manipulative techniques used by current political advertisers, but somehow, that is a known evil, and at least they follow some set of standards (whether spoken or unspoken or actually regulated). I can easily imagine how a completely false but highly viral message could completely tar a candidate. The whole thing brings the level of political discourse even farther into all those murky messy parts of human nature that politics are supposed to be one defense against.
Then again, it might make no difference whatsoever. Political viral-ness may never be able to do more than preach to the choir, and candidates always may have to pay to get their message in front of people who don’t already think what they think.