Politicos Beware: You Live in YouTube’s World

Electoral candidates will be forced to watch their manners —
and mouths — more than ever this year thanks to
YouTube.com, a
video-posting website that is fast becoming the ever-watchful eye
of the masses.

Since its launch 18 months ago, YouTube has served as the
internet hot-spot to catch (or incessantly revisit) the great
fleeting moments of film, television, and news (think Zidane’s
headbutt or Napoleon Dynamite’s dance scene). More recently,
however, the site has taken an increasingly serious and political
turn, Linda Feldmann reports for the Christian
Science Monitor.

Video of Delaware Senator Joseph Biden’s ‘odd
comment’ to an Indian-American and
Virginia Senator George Allen’s now infamous
‘macaca’ slur otherwise could have aired on the news once (or
not at all) and then been lost or forgotten. With YouTube, the
videos of the senators’ political blunders were watched and
re-watched by thousands, posted on blogs, and sent nationwide via
email.

Politicians are taking heed, Feldmann writes. Following Google
and Wikipedia, YouTube has become the next checkpoint for message
management. Not only are politicians probing the site for
potentially embarrassing or incriminating clips, they are
appropriating it for their own ends by posting their advertisements
and speeches. The tactic is an unprecedented perk to politicos
trying to trim campaign budgets, but it may also be a boon for
voters, who can now see with their own eyes rather than depend upon
a scattering of heavily edited sound bites. — Elizabeth
Oliver

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Politicos Beware: You Live in YouTube’s
World

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