New Media and the Election

Wisconsin State Journal - Forum

‘New media’ enhance citizens’ involvement

The “new media” will greatly enhance the process of electing our next president because bloggers, MySpace and YouTube and single issue group e-mail listings have become important vehicles for generating political awareness and involvement.

This was seen in 2006 when non-partisan citizen groups organized to soundly defeat the attempt by corporate America to extend media consolidation. This successful citizen protest was carried out on a shoestring compared to the combined corporate resources arrayed against it.

These new media mechanisms have already begun to transform our democracy. While the traditional print media simply copy corporate-produced political news into the local newspaper like a template, this new media allows thousands of bloggers and citizen journalists to investigate and report.

Bloggers have both the freedom and tenacity to stay long enough with a single issue until its truth or falsity is clearly made known or public action is taken. Unlike the traditional press, which regularly editorializes on only one political perspective day after day and allows only a paltry number of differing citizen opinions, the new interactive journalism is a beehive of conflicting political news accounts.

Dr. Dhavan Shah, UW-Madison professor of journalism and political science who was quoted in Sunday’s Forum column could not be more wrong when he alleges the new media “doesn’t have the normal filters of political journalism.” Quite the opposite is true. The new media has thousands of filters for each and every political story while mainstream journalism increasingly presents only one view. This was best seen with the unanimous pro war perspective that traditional journalism provided the American people leading up to the Iraq War.

Those who are still have doubts only need to consider Ron Paul’s amazing presidential candidacy. Thousands of ordinary citizens have financially invested in Paul’s campaign. Thanks to the new media and the internet, the not-so-rich and the powerless can take heart about their new political fortunes.