Number 8

I think that politicians are trying to use new media, but are still nervous about implications. Feingold uses his blog to post press releases. Twitter is not used to give insight into candidates lives, but as just another way to post links to the same press releases. I am not generally one who says I want to know what my president is really like, I want their policies to play the important role, but politicians have a unique chance with facebook and twitter to reach people on a more personal note. They can tell us who they are and why the policies are important that they are recommending.

Grassroots organizations as seen by the most recent elections can play a larger role then ever before. Reaching people 24 hours a day is now possible for small organizations. The two party system is still strong, but these organizations will force the democrats and republicans to look at the new issues.

Bloggers change the news cycle. Television has already made politics a 24/7 operation, but print is a powerful medium and now it is also 24/7.

I found that the internet is used differently by all three of these groups that I explored, but what I would want you all to take away form my presentation and my post is that politics has only just scratched the potential of the Web and the power and importance of new media will only continue to grow.

I will leave you with this: D.C political offices are starting to create a department specifically for new media in addition to traditional communication's offices

importance of online political activism

One the things that I constantly thought about while doing this project is the role of online political activism.

When I was looking at the Tea Party forums and my blogs i kept coming back to the idea that Web 2.0 was trying to democratize the internet. I think that by giving people a voice it also makes the governments democracy stronger as well. Do you guys remember when it was discovered that Sarah Palin's clothing was paid for by the GOP? Well politico broke that first online. Instantly the word was everywhere because the article reached users as soon as it was finished.

In addition, anyone can create a blog to discuss politics now and small niche groups that may get left out of main stream media. Through this these groups can end up getting heard and become relevant in the political discussion the possibilities are endless when it comes to what political activist can now achieve because of the Web.

Yes, this is not always a good thing. I have read some pretty crazy things while doing research for this project, but at the same time it is pretty great that major papers like The New York Times no longer control the news

More on the Tea Party

I enjoyed exploring the Tea Party forums especially surrounding the elections. It was interesting because while there was a consistant updating of the message boards leading up to the election a lot of the discussion remained very general. There was talk about what was important standards for the country to maintain and of course more on going hunting. I expected more political get out the vote messages, but there really was not that much of that. The only reason I could think of for this would be that the Tea Party forum that I visited is not necessarily for political unity, but social unity to communicate people that have shared values

I never actually participated in the discussions because it was not a place for debate, but agreement the "virtual community" was well established and I didn't feel that I could enter into the conversation.

Professional Bloggers

I explored political activism through the use of blogs. I broke blogging into two groups, professional and amateur blogging. The difference is that professionals are current or former journalist and the blog is not just a hobby, but functions and a digital newspaper searching for new information with the aim to break a story. On the other hand amateur political bloggers are people with an interest in politics as a personal hobby, but are not aiming to create news just discuss it.

Although, both types are important I focused on the professional blogs such as talking points memo and Huffington post. I tend to group politico in this group because they are mainly on the web, but do publish a small newspaper in D.C.

I spent each day of my project searching these blogs. There is a strong influence of the print tradition on these blogs because most of them are Journalists. What is interesting about these media is that they allow for a lot of user comments and talking points memo allows people to participate in certain sections of the website. Usually these sites are starting by younger people looking to make a splash in political reporting with out all of the restraints that print media has

Practicum- Questions

1. Why is the internet such an important domain for political activism?

2. What are some other ways that those who wish to be politically active on the internet could get involved?

3. What ways are you politically active on the internet?

Practicum- Three

I forgot to keep you guys updated on the Tea Party. I have my presentation tomorrow, so don't worry I will be giving you more. I googled the Tea Party and found the "TeapartyPatriots.org" website which is the "official grassroots American movement." On their front page you can get connected to their facebook page, youtube videos, and twitter updates. The twitter updates or patriot feed are comments where Tea Party advocates can update you on their thoughts and where you can retweet the inspirational things that are being said.

My personal favorite was where the screen name the Huntress updating saying she was "Going Hunting" and someone responded to that "Use your most powerful ammo to save freedom, vote & spread the word!"

The Tea party is using facebook and twitter to spread the word. Grassroot movements are more viable because you can create third spaces and community and establish contact to like minded people the way this website is

Practicum- Jon

I thought I would share a quick story with the class. Two summers ago I worked at the capital building interning at a State Senators office. He is a life time politician, one of those guys who tells stories of how the democrats and republicans used to finalize the budget together at a bar on a napkin, but now everything is so political.

Well a few months before I started working there he started a facebook account. Posting pictures of events that he went to, status updates about trips to his district. Well one night he wrote a negative rant about a fellow senator. One office staffer saw this and called him in horror explaining that his profile is public and that anyone, not just friends, can see what he wrote.

What I take from this is that what we take for granted shows that while experimenting with the internet politicians are also learning that reaching a mass audience can have pitfalls as well

Practicum- Jon

My topic is to look at how political activists use the internet. In recent years the importance of the internet in politics has grown immensely. I plan on looking at a few different type of political players over the course of the project to see the differences within this sub-group. So I figured what better way to start then with Russ Feingold.

Every politician has a personal website so I figured that is where I would start my search into the world of politics. His home page is pretty standard with links to news articles, video of interviews, and of course a map of Wisconsin. What I found interesting is that there are links to RSS feeds and podcast's. If you click on the "In the news tab" you can follow even more links to Senator Feingold's blog post on the Huffington Post. Podcast's and Blog Post are everywhere in politics because it is free commercial space where you can reach and try to relate to constituents. The Feingold persona is shaped through the internet because it is the fastest and easiest way to reach the voters. Web 2.0 has created an entire new market for politics and politicians have become new media users to keep up.

Here is one of his blog post if you are interested