Sunday, October 15, 2006
Politicians and "Internet candid cameras"
The Washington Post has a very good story this morning on the use of websites like YouTube.com by political campaigns throughout the United States.
It goes without saying that this is an area that has seen very little systematic study by those who research elections and political communications --- what campaigns use this technology? Are they effective in distributing information about candidates? What are the attributes of the views of these sites, and what are the attributes of the voters who view the materials on sites like YouTube.com? In short, there is virtually no systematic research at this point in time regarding the influence of this new use of Internet technology in political campaigns in the US (or abroad -- see my post a few minutes about about how YouTube.com is being used in a Mexican gubernatorial election).
It goes without saying that this is an area that has seen very little systematic study by those who research elections and political communications --- what campaigns use this technology? Are they effective in distributing information about candidates? What are the attributes of the views of these sites, and what are the attributes of the voters who view the materials on sites like YouTube.com? In short, there is virtually no systematic research at this point in time regarding the influence of this new use of Internet technology in political campaigns in the US (or abroad -- see my post a few minutes about about how YouTube.com is being used in a Mexican gubernatorial election).
// posted by Michael Alvarez @ 11:29 AM 
