Politics & Pop Culture

Technology Combines Mainstream

The phenomenon of social networking sites has changed the way we participate in politics. Media has figured out a way to bridge the political awareness gap. Within the past few years we have seen the mesh of politics take part in social networking as a tool to reach greater audiences and it has proved to be effective. Pop culture today is a combination of new media, reality TV, music, and the use of the internet as a base for social interaction. One prime example of this mesh is the recent 2008 presidential election trail. We saw presidential campaigns work hard throughout political debates by blogging, talking to reporters, and sending out e-mails to make their take on the candidates’ performances known.
Sites such as Facebook and Youtube served as platforms to get online debates and opinions voiced to TV media. The 56th Presidential Inauguration was counted as one of the most watched events in media history. Nearly 37.8 million Americans watched the inauguration of President Barack Obama on TV, making Obama’s inauguration the second most-viewed Presidential inauguration since Ronald Reagan’s record 41.8 million viewers in 1981. This massive number is due to the open number of outlets available to view the inauguration—TV, streamline through multiple internet sites and mobile devices. Akamai Technologies Inc., which delivers Internet video for many Web sites, said the inauguration was a record for them, with 7.7 million people watching video streams at the same time.
You can go on Facebook and browse various politician pages or you can Youtube your favorite politician on a viral video. We even see politics becoming a part of the reality TV craze. Newsweek set out to probe the question, “What if MTV made a reality show about Obama’s first 100 days?” MTV & Newsweek has created a new series of webisodes about Barack Obama’s first 100 days in the Oval Office. It’s called “The District”. The show was created as a spinoff of MTV’s reality shows such as the “The Hills” and “The City”.
Networks have realized the power of partnerships with social sites such as Twitter, Youtube, Facebook and Myspace. Jeff Jarvis, the director of the interactive journalism NY’s City University says, “If we’re going to have an open, collaborative government, we need to have access to those tools. Not only should the White House be blogging and Twittering, but so should members of congress.” There is a transformation of more partnerships between major Networks and social online sites. For example during the presidential campaigns CNN and Facebook facilitated debates online while giving up to date reports live on TV polling citizen’s opinions or thoughts by viewing people’s facebook status, twitter updates and wall post. When it comes to bridging the communications gap between the politics and the global citizen the ever changing face of communication is limitless! It will be interesting to see what the future holds.

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