Monday, November 03, 2008

Liberals and New Media; Some Brief Thoughts

Given their precarious financial situation, the Liberals need to take advantage of new media. The problem is they do not know how to do it. The good news is that they are not alone. The major parties seem to see new media as just another means by which to disseminate current talking points and boiler plate. The model is top down. For blogs to be any use to the party, the party should be thinking bottom up. This is what the Liberals should aim for.

The totality of interactions on self identified Liberal blogs produces and refines some talking points.

Lib blogs serves de facto war room, albeit a secondary one.

Lib blogs serves as means of spreading information that the MSM refuses to pick up

Lib blogs serves as means of extending the news cycle of issue that damaging to the Conservatives

Of course, for any of this to happen Lib blogs has to grow substantially larger. The number of regular posters is puny. The $64,000 question is to how to foster such development.

The potential of online video as means hitting the opposition over the head should be obvious by now and the Liberals seem to have caught on. What seems to escaped the party’s attention is how to use online video as means of reaching voters in a positive way. No one is going to watch boiler plate. No one cares whether Dion has a web journal. No one is going to watch how Liberals are going to be make Canada “a fairer, Greener”, place. If you want to catch people’s attention (a la what Obama was able to achieve on his essay on race), you have to talk up to them and not talk down. Online video should be seen as means of demonstrating your leader or team’s knowledge and smarts and not necessarily as means of furthering some policy end. You Tube is made for someone like Ignatieff.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I beg to differ, liblogs, and blogging tories, are considered in the journalistic world to be intolerant sites, liblogs for instance, is a rampant anti American sites and has the rhetoric to prove it, in which no one wants to be associated with. And we put blogging tories in the same category, but to a lesser degree. No dissenting views are allowed. Recently, post where put on these sites to see if opposing views would be debated, to this journalists surprise they where not. Instead, liblogs and blogging tories, ganged up to ridiculed what was, some well thought out researched posts, all that was posted was derived from the web and credible web sites. Nonetheless, the intolerance exposed on liblogs especially, for dissenting views, did not promote right nor left, but only personal glory seekers, who competed on how popular they where, and not on the issue. An exposé on this point will be coming out soon, from an independent journalist, and will point out these facts. Hopefully to make the blogging world realize that all information are the public domain, and all voices must be respected, not personalized glory sites, that may harm the independence or respect of the media. It is my personal experience that journalists and political parties, do not want to be associated with these sites anymore, because of the reasons I expressed. And on a personal note, liblogs is considered the worse of these sites, explaining why the site has not grown larger, but as actually gotten smaller. Spreading information is fine, but one sided anti Americanism, and intolerance for the others opinion, is not a vote getter, but a turn off to the political parties of this country. I have chosen to revealed this exposé, soon to come out, because of the relevance to the post you have written, what you do with it to improve the site you post on, will be totally up to you, but we will be watching..

Koby said...

You miss the point. One, I am talking about what blogs could be and not what they are. Two, no one is going to "associate" with lib blogs or any other blogging site. They might however read them and that is the point. Three, I take aim at the party on a regular basis. Differences of opinion are tolerated. Indeed, those that toe the party line too closely often find their views attacked. Cherinak was a good case in point. What is not tolerated is the demand that lib bloggers be differntial and "respectful". Palin is a goof and so Red Tory, rightly, calls her a goof.