Life in the City - JRN112-021
Debate 2.0: The Presidential Debates Go Online
The above image thanks to The Globe And Mail
It's the morning after the first big debate and, as expected, leading newspapers all over the world are publishing columns rehashing the event for those who missed it. Perhaps, however, the most remarkable aspect of this first debate wasn't what Obama and McCain had to say, but rather what everyone else had to say.
Everyone, from traditional big media outlets, to the smallest of one-person blogs, seems to have had something to say about the debate, and this year marks one of the first times everyone has had the opportunity to get online and say it. Traditional large media organizations like The Globe And Mail, one of Canada's national newspapers, published realtime updates in a blog entry while the debate was happening. Under the sometimes sarcastic quips of Globe And Mail political blogger Siri Agrell, the weblog comments were home to realtime reader discussion about everything from good journalism to objections to the debate moderator.
CNN, of course, was also covering the debate online. They kicked things off in the live video section a full hour before the debate even began, with exclusive online programming featuring reader calls and emails, the positions of several political bloggers, and encouragement for everyone to sign up to the CNN Forum, where realtime reader discussion of the debate took place. Once the debate started, CNN offered a live online stream of the debate, as well as an audience reaction stream, and a stream for realtime comment. After the debate finished, CNN closed with one last hour of exclusive online video coverage, with more reflection from bloggers and reader comment.
But traditional media outlets weren't the only ones focused on online debate coverage and reader comment. The popular microblogging service Twitter created a special page to aggregate user posts about the debate as they happened. This still ongoing stream of completely unmoderated international user comment gives a much more raw look into the thoughts and opinions of people all over the world than a more moderated outlet like CNN. However, it may not be for all readers, as Twitter chose not to filter out frequent obscenity in order to give a true reflection of what people are really discussing.
In another, somewhat less popular project called crowd narration, users with some brands of set-top boxes could choose to have realtime chat about the debate superimposed over the picture on the TV while they were watching. Even though this attempt was seriously limited by the need to own the correct type of hardware, it points the way towards a future where TV will become an interactive media, with viewer participation similar to what is now available online.
In yet another online coverage effort, MSNBC teamed up with a popular online news website called Newsvine and created Debating The Debate, an article written in realtime based on collective user commentary of the event. This unique combination of user moderation and realtime discussion created an interesting article in a style never seen before.
In short, those who only watched the debate on TV last night missed a lot. They not only missed an opportunity to be heard and express themselves, they also missed an entire dimension of exciting online comment and coverage that has never taken place before in debate history. We can only hope that the Canadian debate next week can attract a similar level of comment and discussion.
Readers who didn't watch the debate at all, or would like to see it again, can also count on online media for a hand. The full debate transcript has already been posted online, and the debate video is already on Youtube. If you'd rather download the debate audio to your mp3 player, you can get it from audible.com.
Posted at 02:25PM Sep 27, 2008. Last updated at 03:11PM Sep 27, 2008 by Samuel Proulx in Politics | Comments[0]
