Comments on: You Tube Democracy? http://cac.ophony.org/2007/08/19/you-tube-democracy/ Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:21:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Tom http://cac.ophony.org/2007/08/19/you-tube-democracy/comment-page-1/#comment-24082 Tom Sat, 27 Oct 2007 23:59:18 +0000 http://cac.ophony.org/2007/08/19/you-tube-democracy/#comment-24082 Sounds like a good idea!  It will be the future of the democratic process.  My website, <a href="http://www.democracytube.com/" rel="nofollow">www.democracytube.com</a>, will seek to bring this fruition. 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.

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]]> By: Tom http://cac.ophony.org/2007/08/19/you-tube-democracy/comment-page-1/#comment-24081 Tom Sat, 27 Oct 2007 23:58:52 +0000 http://cac.ophony.org/2007/08/19/you-tube-democracy/#comment-24081 Sounds like a good idea!  It will be the future of the democratic process. Sounds like a good idea!  It will be the future of the democratic process.

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]]> By: Agnieszka http://cac.ophony.org/2007/08/19/you-tube-democracy/comment-page-1/#comment-21772 Agnieszka Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:39:30 +0000 http://cac.ophony.org/2007/08/19/you-tube-democracy/#comment-21772 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. 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.

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]]> By: Ryan http://cac.ophony.org/2007/08/19/you-tube-democracy/comment-page-1/#comment-21767 Ryan Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:56:00 +0000 http://cac.ophony.org/2007/08/19/you-tube-democracy/#comment-21767 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, <em>non</em>-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 <em>or</em> 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. 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.

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