Date: Thursday, August 2, 2007
Online first: presidency candidates debate questions posed on the net
In an unprecedented move, the US candidates for the presidential election in 2008 recently took part in a shared YouTube-CNN initiative in which the questions were sourced exclusively from posts on YouTube.
With the increasing frenzied atmosphere of the American presidential elections, candidates have been keen to jump on the ‘new media’ bandwagon, presenting an image more in touch with their electorate. American citizens were invited to pose questions to the candidates on YouTube, from which a number were then chosen by CNN to be put to the contenders. This debate was then broadcast to millions of viewers both on air and online in a completely original format.
Experts are now questioning if this is the future of things to come, and whether soon ‘old media’ will be completely defunct? Already 15% of American citizens say that they rely entirely on the internet for political news reporting. However other commentators believe that the debate wasn’t actually that significant and rather was made out to be more than it actually was by the hype surrounding it. Only time will tell if this medium of news reporting will become the main, however various reports claim that the political participants did not seem very comfortable in this format. Moreover others are outraged that CNN chose the questions beforehand claiming that it goes against the entire YouTube philosophy that the viewers choose for themselves which posts get prominence by being the most watched. Therefore it seems that the ‘old media’ isn’t ready to let go of its control over political news reporting just yet. Although a rise in online news reporting is welcomed by many people who say it’s a very good way to get younger generations interested in politics by using a medium they are familiar with. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Sources:
Times Online
BBC News
This article is the intellectual property of Pan European Consulting Limited and any unauthorised reprinting or publishing on other websites is an infringement of copyright.