OCTOBER 10, 2008

Politics 2.0

The power of social media is growing ever more pervasive, and the commentary of those who want a voice is becoming increasingly (and more seamlessly) integrated at the macro level - particularly when it comes to politics.

Over the course of this year, large traditional media organizations have gotten into the act. First, we had the CNN/YouTube debates. Now, C-SPAN has created tools to help bloggers take a more active role in debate commentary. The government affairs network recently developed a site called “Debate Hub” that offers a slate of tools to those interested in liveblogging debates, including live timeline-based embeddable (and editable) video clips and transcripts, site integration of twitter feeds, and lots of outgoing links to live blogs as they happen. The real-time toolbox and level of interactivity and inclusiveness on the site are impressive. And rather than forcing bloggers to find them, C-SPAN is reaching out to the bloggers. A typical e-mail from the C-SPAN team looks like this:

Hey Steve,

Just wanted to drop you a line to remind you that C-SPAN’s going to be running its Debate Hub tonight. If you want to post clips and not have to wait until after the debate to do so, you can actually edit and splice together clips while the debate is going on. So let’s say John McCain or Obama says an answer that you find interesting, you can go to the live streaming debate timeline, click on the blue (Obama) or red (McCain) block and that specific answer will pop up in the transcripts and you can embed just that tiny portion of video:

http://debatehub.c-span.org/

Also, if you scroll down to the bottom you’ll see that we’re live streaming twitter posts when users use the hashtags debate08 and #nashdebate, and we’re also constantly monitoring and linking to bloggers who are live blogging the debate.

Enjoy the debate, and if you have any questions please contact me.

These aren’t just form letters; there are real people on the other end who not only respond, but are participating in the debate commentary themselves.

Another resource that’s popped up is Twitter.com and Current.tv’s joint project, “Hack the Debate“. The site allows for tweets to be superimposed, live, over video coverage of a debate. The result is a combination of CNN’s Live Audience Reaction Meter and MST3K. (The promo video for the service is pretty cool.)

What all of this amounts to is a a more robust political conversation, which I see as a good thing. It’s one thing to be encouraged to go out and vote; it’s another entirely to be encouraged to be educated about the candidates and their issues and to take part in the national discussion. The more people know, the more likely they are to make good, informed decisions - and that benefits everyone.