Politics 2.0 - Can Online Video Even the Political Playing Field?
The 2008 election will be the first in the web 2.0 era. Tomorrow night MSNBC will broadcast the first debate of the election cycle at 7pm as the Democrats take the stage in South Carolina. The event will be streamed live on MSNBC.com.
On May 3rd MSNBC.com and politico.com will stream the Republican debate live from the Reagan Library in California. The debate will feature a “speed round” of user submitted questions that can be submitted here. Questions will be narrowed down via an online vote.
Also today, Creative Commons CEO Lawrence Lessig called on both political parties to “require of any network broadcasting Presidential debates (at least) that they license the debates freely after they are initially broadcast…so long as there is attribution back to any purported copyright holder.”
In the letter co-signed by some of the most respected names in new media and politics on both sides of the aisle Lessig writes:
In 2008, we need to ensure that the promise of online video is not inhibited. In thee past, television stations that broadcast presidential debates have retained exclusive rights to debate footage after the event was over. By and large, such contract terms were not noticed by voters, activists, or news junkies - there was no widespread forum for regular people to share video content even if they wanted to.
But in the age of online video sharing, corporations retaining exclusive rights to debate footage is an obvious barrier to democratic participation. No concerned voter should ever be labeled a lawbreaker for wanting to share video of a presidential debate with others.
While media organizations have good reasons for protecting their content this is one area in which openness is good for everyone. Politics changed drastically in the television age, many would argue for the worse.
New technology has the potential to change them again for the better - making candidates accessible in a truly meaningful way for the first time in decades.