yup.

I think this misses. And here's why.

That is what happened in this election. For George Allen it was macaca. For John F. Kerry it was a bungled joke about education and Iraq. For Harold Ford it was the "Memphis Meltdown" and the "bimbo ad".

But without CNN, MSNBC Fox, and the sundry cable 'nets picking up where YouTube leaves off, you still don't underline the context and analysis that goes along with those stories.

Example: The "macaca" moment would have meant nothing if you just showed the few seconds of video. You had to know that "macaca" meant n***** among people of French Tunisian descent. You don't get that from YouTube. Absent further analysis, that video gains no traction.

Same with the other stories. You might have missed the dog-whistle racism in the Mandingo ad. You might not get that there were those who wanted you to understand John Kerry's joke as something other than a mistake.

____________________________

You can live a batter life, or a butter life. Or both, if you choose.

Everything has context, and context is everything.

Precisely the point -- and "macaca" and the "John Kerry moment" have no meaning without the written word.

YouTube is predominantly a means for the viral marketing of ideas, and I don't know that this is necessarily an unmitigated good.

____________________________

You can live a batter life, or a butter life. Or both, if you choose.

You may be on to something, but I'm not sure you realize what it is.

If you don't trust the internets or newspapers or the sources behind their written words, fine. But that's no excuse to accept what you see on TV or YouTube without any critical thought or questioning.

You introduce the concept of critical thinking. You know how little I trust the written word. How I scan it for hidden meanings in both what is written and what is not written. I am more critical of Television. You may have forgotten when I wrote about how Peter Jennings could inflect on a certain word or raise an eyebrow to change the meaning of the words he was saying.

Few people look at news the way I do or the way you do. Most people have no idea what critical thinking is much less how to do it. Television is Soma. Yet it is the primary source of news for most Americans.

For example, take the following sentence, "I did not say she stole the money". There are six different meanings in that sentence depending on the inflection used on each word. In critical thinking you have to decipher not what the person is saying but what really happened. People lie, they make mistakes, and often they go to great lengths to cover up lies or mistakes.

I am not advocating this new medium will be a good thing. That will depend on the critical thinking of the viewer. I just point out that it will change both the face of politics and the management of government. Of course it will be abused. It already has been.

But knowledge is power and anything that brings knowledge to the individual citizen will be good for the country. Of course people will have to use their brains to discern what is real and what is fake. Some will be fooled and some will gain real knowledge.

Watch the next version of YouTube. I predict that it will become more blog like and have expanded area for written content and context. YouTube is the next big thing. November 7th is the proof.

At least not in political campaigns.
The "Macaca" guy actually was a tracker working for the Webb campaign, which is what made it so dumb for Allen to say what he said to him. Trackers follow the opposing candidate and try to record everything s/he does or says.

The so-called "Memphis Meltdown" involved big media, but was caught by a tracker and massaged by Tom Ingram. It was what it was -- a POed Ford confronting the elusive Corker right after the "Call me" ad started running. Ingram got on it, named it, interpreted it, owned it and put it out there for Hornbackian distribution. It was pretty much presented without context -- sort of a res ipsa case for Ford's "immaturity" as compared to the macaca incident, which had legs because it got translated, connected to Allen, which brought out all kinds of reports from all kinds of people (including our own Metulj) who had heard Allen using the N word over the years.

If you recall, Ingram tried it again when Harold Sr. confronted the two crazed anti abortion preachers who invaded the campaign headquarters parking lot. He pulled out his cell phone and started yelling about the tracker. The Corker people tried to say he called the tracker a "cracker," and the so-called racial epithet was repeated on such august Web sites as Briansblog. It fizzled after a few hours when the sound was analyzed and it was found that Senior had indeed been bitching about a tracker, not a cracker. Even the unembarrassable Briansblog shut up about it.

This stuff lends itself to 'gotcha' "journalism" at its very lowest level, for the most part.

The reality is that TV is the enemy to objective thought ... TV is style without subsance. TV is sound bites without context.

Beautifully put, SKB. Those are precisely the reasons I turned off my TV four years ago, and I haven't missed it one bit. I don't watch TV news, and I don't watch what passes for "entertainment" programs. I've never seen "Survivor" or "Desperate Housewives" or "American Idol" or anything else sent across the cable lines masquerading as either entertainment or news in over four years.

It was the smartest thing I've ever done.

Since 2002, my TV has been turned on for the following things only: UT football games (with the sound muted and the Vol Radio Network playing on the stereo), the 2004 Presidential election returns, and to watch DVDs (I watch a lot of movies). Otherwise, I haven't turned on the set in four years, and I don't miss it one bit.

Since that time, I've found my news almost exclusively online. I read several news sites every day (NY Times, WaPo, BBC, The Guardian, KNS, etc.), voraciously devouring the content that I choose and pursuing the topics that interest me. With TV "news," I had no choice regarding the stories presented, the sequence of presentation/consumption, or the depth of coverage. With the Internet, I can control all of those things. I honestly believe I'm better informed now than I ever have been in my life. I spend hours every day consuming news and information from all over the world, on a wide range of topics that none of the TV networks or printed media could ever hope to match.

For me, "media" no longer means what it used to: it's no longer a product that is sold to a consuming public. It's now vast, global, comprehensive, and much more controllable by the end user, but only because I deliberately chose to approach it that way. If my TV were still turned on, I'd be just as oblivious as most of the population, while still thinking I was well-informed. As #9 pointed out, the center of power has shifted from the producer to the end user.

YouTube is certainly part of this new paradigm. It's vast, wide-ranging, and under the control of the consumer. However, it isn't information, it isn't news, and it isn't really entertainment. Videos are limited to 10 minutes (I think), which seriously constrains the depth any particular video can achieve. It's built precisely for a soundbite-driven market. It's a mashup for a culture with a notoriously short attention span. However, as both you and #9 pointed out, it reverses the locus of control. The producers and media companies can't control the content, they can only chase it. End users (formerly known as "consumers") are now empowered to produce their own messages, unfiltered by corporate or political influence. Even though there's a ten minute time limit, a lot can be crammed into that time frame. This is a blessing for those of us who still value freedom of speech and breadth of perspective. This is a Godsend for those of us who desire comprehensive views on a wide spectrum of subjects. YouTube is limited in some respects, but its potential to liberate information outweighs its limitations and its appeal to those with ADD.

Marshall McLuhan said, "The medium is the message." He had no idea how prescient he was.

--Socialist With A Gold Card

P.S. And trust me when I tell you that Bob Corker's TV ads were far more effective than thousands of YouTube video views.

Exactly. But when those same Bob Corker's TV ads were uploaded to YouTube tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, more impressions were made. They were then linked on blogs and in emails.

YouTube is a new medium. A new transport. People are making a mistake when they see YouTube as MySpace version 2.0. One is static and the other is dynamic.

Need proof? You can watch network Television shows on (link...) if you missed them. When the Television networks copy an idea, the idea is the next big thing.

Don't think that Google will blow this. They won't.

Just to recap, I am not saying this will not have a downside. It will. But it offers the individual citizen new options and it may force better government.

What happens on November 27th in the next Knox County Commission meeting if snippets of that meeting end up on YouTube? Do you think Mike Hammond will play the same game he played in the last meeting? Do you think this may put pressure on the Knoxville News Sentinel to actually report the news?

(That said, I've been thinking about getting a video camera to cover public events, but mainly so I don't have to take notes. Heh.)

Heh indeed.

Expanding on that codicil somewhat:

Check this out.

One of the biggest sticking points in this merger has been net neutrality. AT&T has sought to have NN provisions gutted, and the Democratic commissioners of the FCC have been insisting on NN as a condition for the merger to go through.

My guess is that Dingell wants to examine that issue more thoroughly, and perhaps to wrangle more concessions from the parties involved.

NN has serious repercussions for all Internet providers -- especially those providing competitive services to AT&T. Google is in favor of NN. AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast aren't.

____________________________

You can live a batter life, or a butter life. Or both, if you choose.

I'm not so sure I agree in whole. tv and you tube are still just the medium. It is the political hack's ability to present an alternative reality that is the message.

I love the ad running over there for Media reform. That's the message of htis campaign. It wasn't the Bimbo ad that cost Ford...It was the failure of media to immediately debunk it. It was the failure of the media to show the hilarious parodies of that ad and give them the same play. It was NPR interviewing a Tennessee "Voter" who said he was voting for Corker because he was older and more mature and not giving an equal voice to a prepared Ford voter.

The real problem is that our eyes have not evolved as far as our noses. The eye gets fooled time and time again...The nose can always smell the stink.

Steve

POSTED FOR #9 BECAUSE IT WON'T LET HIM FOR SOME REASON

UTube can't work without TRACKERS
Submitted by Bbeanster on Wed, 2006/11/08 - 9:03pm.
At least not in political campaigns.
The "Macaca" guy actually was a tracker working for the Webb campaign,
which is what made it so dumb for Allen to say what he said to him.
Trackers follow the opposing candidate and try to record everything
s/he does or says...

This stuff lends itself to 'gotcha' "journalism" at its very lowest
level, for the most part.

For the "macaca" event or the "Memphis Meltdown" trackers are required.

But in the case of the John F. Kerry "bungled joke" or the "bimbo ad"
for Harold Ford no trackers are needed. Kerry's gaffe was a speech
broadcast on cable news. The Ford ad played on many Television
outlets.

From its earliest inception the Internet was envisioned to be a new
communications medium. Email killed the fax machine. Napster wounded
the music industry. Blogs threatened newspapers and magazines.

But the killer app is YouTube. Andy Axel has made the valid point that
YouTube will be hit with thousands of lawsuits in the attempt to stop
copyrighted material from being shown. Am I the first person to think
that this was exactly what happened with Napster? What ever happened
to Napster? What started as a pirate music sharing site is today a
legitimate music download site that some say is even a better deal
than I-Tunes.

But wait there's more...

The next generation cell phones will actually be an "appliance".
Imagine if you will a device that can receive phones calls, emails,
text messages, store both music and movies, take still pictures and
movies with sound, has a 4 inch color LCD screen, and is the size of
an IPOD.

Who would watch "Lost" or "Desperate Housewives" on a 4 inch screen?
Very few people. But who would watch a two minute YouTube video on a 4
inch screen? Tens of millions of Americans.

You will be able to walk up to a pal at Starbucks and "beam" across
the YouTube video you downloaded last night.

This will be the digital convergence that was supposed to happen years
ago. All the pieces were there but no one found the proper conduit.
YouTube is the conduit.

The result is that any citizen can be both reporter, editor, and
talking head. The 24/7 news cycle has just grown geometrically. Now
news can be reported by the second.

NUMBERNINE

Here's something that supports part of Number9's thesis:

(link...)