A few weeks ago, the democrats debated each other in front of a live audience, as usual, but also on millions of computer screens via You Tube. The format of this event, co-sponsored by CNN, was a bit different than usual. The internet users were invited to submit their questions on video as well, and those were played on a large screen and then the responses of each candidate were also posted online.
Is this format really a revolutionary new approach? I am sure it was meant to attract young voters, and offer a “fresh” approach to an old, tired way of doing things. But was this a successful attempt or simply a rehash of “same old” with a new technology attached to it? Jon Stuart’s Daily Show had a rather harsh critique of the idea and its execution.
More recently, the LOGO, LGBT channel, hosted a democratic presidential debate as well.
This was a live debate, where a couple of moderators asked the candidates questions about issues that the LGBT community cares about. It is also an innovative way of doing things, and certainly this type of event would probably not be possible 10 years ago. But there were no technological gimmicks here, and yet I think I learned more about the candidates’ opinions about a few specific things. In this particular case the technology of the You Tube/CNN debate did not contribute to providing information or clarifying the issues.
I have to agree with Agnieszka: there was nothing really new substantively about the "You-Tube Debates." The questions were rarely any more interesting or incisive than those offered by taking heads and CNN generally picked softball ones that ended with "… So my question is, to all the candidates, what would you do about Issue X?" At which point all the candidates would find their notecards with their planned rhetoric for Issue X, do their spiel, invite us to see the whole plan on their websites. Also, though we don't like to admit it, many of us normal citizens are just not aware enough of how politics and governance actually work to ask intelligent questions — though we might be so very heartfelt and genuine, which are obviously TV assets.
That said, non-You-Tube debates are even more vacuous and circus-like, even more obviously about ratings rather than understanding the candidates. (For an example witness the travesty that was the morning Iowa debate among Dems this past weekend, shamelessly mangled by George Stephonopholous so that no idea more complex than "See spot run" could emerge.)
I pose this question: What use are question-askers (You-Tube or professional) anyway? Why not have the candidates argue it out on their own, like debate teams or like Senators? Also, why not have single issue debates? 90 minutes rather than 90 seconds talking about healthcare might give the voter a chance to see who really knows what he/she's talking about.
Reply to Ryan
I think that give the kind of technology that we now have at our disposal, we should be able to structure these debates in such a way as to not allow the candidates get away with “run of the mill / talking points” kind of answers. If we are to have “question askers”, why not have them be specialist in their given field, and perhaps have live video conferencing, where the “question asker” would have an opportunity to respond and ask a follow up question of the candidate? Obviously, this would have to take a lot longer than one minute, and would probably expose more about each candidate’s “expertise” then they would be comfortable with. This is not to say that the audience is not to blame. The networks probably realize that the average viewer’s attention span might be about 90 seconds and, if we were to engage in serious debate about healthcare, a couple of million people would immediately switch channels to watch the American Idol. Or maybe, just maybe, we would all be surprised and for once we could all be engaged in a serious debate about issues than actually matter.
Reply to Agnieszka
Sounds like a good idea! It will be the future of the democratic process.
Reply to Tom
Sounds like a good idea! It will be the future of the democratic process. My website, http://www.democracytube.com, will seek to bring this fruition.
Reply to Tom