Candidates are using participatory websites for recognition and to increase involvement among young voters. Through social networking sites, candidates are trying to get the best reputation. For example, on You Tube there is a community dedicated to the 2008 election called “You Choose 2008.” On the main page there are 2 columns, one for Democrat and the other for Republican each with eight candidates. The candidates have introduction videos that include clips of them speaking, interviews, and why they should be elected. Some of these videos have over 200,000 views and allow the public to post their own videos responses and comments, getting the people involved. Journalist Barb Palser wrote an article called Politics 2.008 all about social networks and politics. She writes about how Myspace is also becoming active in the campaign, and plans on holding a primary on January 1^st and 2^nd for United States Myspace members. She also quotes that there is an ongoing “Myspace popularity contest” (1). I looked for myself and as of November 18^th 2007, Barack Obama had 193,379 friends, more than any other candidate. Hillary Clinton had the 2^nd most with 148,125. Candidates now have a lot of pressure to impress the Web crowd.

Journalist Kate Kenski writes, “According to some accounts, individuals who access political information on the internet are likely those who are already interested in politics; the Internet thus does not increase political involvement” (1). What she is saying is that if you are looking at political websites then you are probably already involved with politics, so the internet isn’t getting people involved. I think this is false because people can be interested and then use the internet to get involved, and not everyone that is interested is necessarily involved either. Plus, she doesn’t really consider that candidates themselves get people interested and involved, and that’s why they are using Myspace, You Tube and Yahoo to do so.

Texas congressman Ron Paul is a great example of a successful internet campaign candidate. This article by Bill Tancer in Time magazine tells all about how he has more internet traffic flow than any other candidate. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1661290,00.html

“With some candidates in the 2008 Presidential election embracing every facet of Web 2.0 to get their message out, from YouTube videos to MySpace profiles, your next president may be no further than a friend-add on Facebook” (1). Tancer thinks Ron Paul is the model 2.0 candidate. He may be far down on the polls but he has been incredibly successful in getting supporters and donations for his campaign, making him the most popular candidate among the web crowd.

The internet gives everyone a voice, and also gives everyone the ability to circulate images on the web to make their own statement. In Henry Jenkin’s book, Convergence Culture, the chapter ‘Photoshop for Democracy’ tells about people using the internet to promote candidates or post altered pictures and videos to mislead people. Jenkins says, “Activists, fans, and parodists of all stripes are using the popular graphics software package, Photoshop, to appropriate and manipulate images to make a political statement” (220). The connection here is that people are actively participating on the Web, trying to make a difference in presidential elections. Same deal with bloggers. There are an endless number of blogs floating around the internet, loaded with opinions arguments, and statements. In a political blog I found called blogcampaigning.com the blogger Espen Skoland made a post about how the internet is definitely impacting the 2008 election. He makes a great point about the Vote Different video on You Tube that attacks Hillary Clinton. “This video has been viewed by over 3.8 million people. Saying that this video has not had an impact on the election is like saying that ads in general have no impact on elections” (Blogcampaigning.com). I’ve put the video below so you can see it. It is and altered 1984 Apple superbowl advertisement.

 Heres a link to my slideshow http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/275833

Essay Works Cited:

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture. New York and London: New York University Press, 2006

Kenski, Kate, and Natalie Jomini Stroud. “Connections Between Internet Use and Political Efficacy, Knowledge, and Participation.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 50.2 (June 2006): 173-192. Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. Neil Hellman Library, Albany, NY. 18 November 2007. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=22999005&site=ehost-live>.

Palser, Barb. “Politics 2.008.” American Journalism Review 29.3 (June 2007): 50-50. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Neil Hellman Library, Albany, NY. 25 October 2007. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=25339334&site=ehost-live>.

Skolan, Espen. “espen, jens, and parker present: Blog Campaigning.” 12 Nov. 2008 <http://blogcampaigning.com/>

Tancer, Bill. “Ron Paul for President 2.0?.” Time. 12 September 2007. 13 November 2007. <http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1661290,00.html>

Photos Works Cited: Copyright Approval for all.

Blogging – http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n259/cherubkim/blogcat.jpg

Ron paul- http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z276/bryan_harding007/5ea5.jpg

Social networks- http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t268/sankethadiga/TheGreatIndianDreamSocNetworkinglog.jpg

Vote for Hillary- http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m69/dodgepanther98/weneedhillaryclinton-1.jpg

Hilldabeast- http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee208/jason1870/Hillary%20clinton/hillbillary.jpg

www- http://www.flickr.com/photos/bull3t/990866224/

You tube logo- http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l160/SchwarzesNuddelpferd/Banner/logo_tagline_sm.gif

You Tube Video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo

Media and it’s role in political campaigning has come a long way.  Today’s political candidates are using the internet more than ever for recognition.  Presidential candidates are currently trying to reach out to the younger generation through You Tube, Myspace, and other social networking sites.  Candidates are trying to present themselves to the best of their ability for more online popularity, targeting youth, young adults, and anyone qualified to vote.

Thesis: Whether it’s You Tube, a blog or any other social networking site, citizens and politicians are using the participatory Web to their advantage; increasing political involvement among young voters.

Main Points:

Participatory Web, Web 2.0

Presidential candidates on social networking sites like You Tube and Myspace.

Bloggers circulating information, ideas, and experience.

People using the participatory Web to manipulate images, videos, sound clips.

Key sources and quotes:

Henry Jenkins, Espen Skolan, Barb Palser, Kate Kenski, Meg McGinity Shannon

I particularly like the way images were used in the Aryan Sisterhood slide-show.  I will probably use multiple images at a time in my show also.  In the making of halo 3, I like the length of the captions.  Mine will probably be a bit longer but they are short and to the point.

The internet has a way of really reaching out to youth.  The Web 2.0 has gotten young adults involved in You Tube, blogs, and social networkings sites.  Now more than ever politics are using the web to campaign and distribute information, trying to increase political involvement among young adults and non-voters.

For my slide-show i was thinking about having a variety of images.  I want to use some collages like the Aryan Sisterhood slide-show.  I’m going to have logos for myspace, yahoo, and you tube.  I want to put up some altered pictures and maybe a video to show how people are using the web negatively against political candidates.

Footage—-”Vote Different” video, Propaganda attacking Hillary Clinton.  Viewed by almost 4 million people.  Almost 16,000 comment, people insulting/defending Hillary, arguments about politics, religion, political parties, promoting other candidates + arguments about that.  Circulated.  Creator remained anonymous for a while.

Cayce Pollard-Lives in NYC. house sits for Damien while he is in Russia. Travels from London to Tokyo, back to London and then to Moscow Russia. Works for advertising agency Blue Ant. Is an advertising consultant. Doesn’t like Tommy Hilfiger, brand name clothing, or corporate logos. Lost father in 9/11. Mother believes his ghost is trying to contact them.

Parkaboy- Met Cayce on the footage website. Lives in Chicago. Meets Cayce at the end and they fall in love. Fascinated with footage, wants to know creator.

Damien- In Russia, filming a documentary about an archaeological dig. Bodies of old war veterans.

Bigend- Owner of Blue Ant. Wants Cayce to identify the creator of the footage for the betterment of the company.

Dorotea- works for blue ant, out to get Cayce. Cayce thinks she broke into Damien’s apartment.

Taki- meets him in Tokyo. claims the footage is watermarked(possible hidden data, messages, copyrite information)

Boone Chu- Parkaboy’s connection source in Tokyo. Partners with Cayce. Also works for Bigend.

F:F:F- a community forum about the footage, Fetish Footage Forum

footage mystery- an artist has been placing their work on various internet locations, accumulates a subculture fanbase, want to know who the filmmaker is and their motives. footage circulates the web.

Pattern Recognition- Business Interests
Hubertus “Lombard” Bigend

Passage #1: That she knows the real Bigend: lateral-thinking imp of the perverse, thirty-something boy genius, seeker after truth (or at least functionality) in the markets of this young century. This is the Bigend that invariably emerges in the articles, no doubt after he’s gotten to the journalist with this smile and his other tools. “I want you to find him.”
“Him.”
“The maker.”
“‘Her’? ‘Them’?”
“The maker. Whatever you need will be put at your disposal. You will not be working for Blue Ant. We will be partners.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know. Don’t you?”
Yes. “Have you considered that if we find ‘him,’ we might interrupt the process?”
“We don’t have to tell her she’s been found, do we?” (Gibson, 66)

Passage #2: He frowns. “Why do you think he wants it?”
“He thinks he can productive it.”
“Then monetize it.” He puts the cup down on the carpet.
“He says it’s about excellence, not money.”
“Sure,” Boone Chu says, “the money’s just a sort of side effect. And that lets him keep it vague with us.”
“But if he priced it, it would be less interesting, wouldn’t it? If he put a fixed ticket on it for us, it would just be another job. He’s appealing to something deeper.”
“And treating it as though it’s a done deal.”
“I’ve noticed that.” She watches his eyes. “But would you want to give him the satisfaction?”
“If I don’t, I may never have the satisfaction of getting to the bottom of this,” he says. “And I’ve tried already.” (Gibson, 106)

1) Describe the individuals (name them) in the specific group who interact with the footage.

In the first passage, Cayce is speaking with Bigend about working with him to find out who the maker of the footage is.  Bigend wants her to be a spy type figure and find out who the maker is and report it all back to him.  In the second passage, Cayce is chatting to Boone Chu about whether or not they want to work on this project for Bigend.

A description of Bigend can be found here.

2) How do they interact with the footage?

Bigend secretly keeps track of Cayce’s blogposts on the F:F:F. He says on page 64 “I’ve had people look at all the sites.  In fact we monitor them on a constant basis. Your contributions are some of the more useful material we’ve come across. ‘CayceP,’ when you start to know the players, is obviously you. Your interest in the footage is therefore a matter of public record, and to be interested, in this case, is to be involved to whatever extent in a subculture.”

3) Why do they interact with it? What is their motivation?

Bigend interact’s with it because to him it is “the single most effective piece of guerilla marketing ever” (64).  He also states “My passion is marketing, advertising, media strategy, and when I first discovered the footage, that is what responded in me.  I saw attention focused daily on a product that may not even exist. You think that wouldn’t get my attention? The most brilliant marketing ploy of this very young century. And new. Somehow entirely new” (65).

“Even her relationship to the footage is changing.  Margot had called the footage Cayce’s hobby, but Cayce has never been a person who had hobbies.  Obsessions, yes.  Worlds.  Places to retreat to.  “But it’s no name,” Margot had said, of the footage, “that’s why you like it.  Isn’t it?  Like your trademark thing.”  (Pattern Recognition Page 94-95)

Cayce has a strange relationship with the footage, and appears obsessed with it.  Margot calls her out on why she is so interested in the footage.  Margot refers to Cayce’s obsession, and is basically saying she is addicted to the footage because it is so mysterious.  Margot says it is her ‘hobby’ and something she can always turn to.  Margot’s dialog comes off pretty negative.  It sounds as if she resents Cayce’s obsession or just feels like attacking her about it.  Margot is annoyed with the way Cayce views the media but Cayce is fascinated by it.

If I could relate Cayce’s relationship with the footage to another form of media it would have to be someone’s addiction to a computer game.  I’ll use Warcraft for an example.  They are similar in the sense that people get obsessed and addicted to the game the same way Cayce is addicted to the footage.  Like the footage, Warcraft is a hobby the many people can often retreat to.  I can definitely see others talking about someone playing Warcraft the same way Margot talks about Cayce’s obsession with the footage.  From experience I’ve probably talked with friends about how someone we know is addicted to Warcraft and plays it like a full time job.  I definitely heard resentment and distasteful conversations towards people who play such computer games.  Yes, many people refer to this media with the same tone as the passage.

“She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London, that Damien’s theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic.  Souls can’t move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage” (Gibson Page 1).

This paragraph is halfway down the first page, but its still one of my favorite passages in the book.white noise-  Reminds me of the movie ‘White Noise’ which I’ve never seen, but the phrase makes me think of ghosts.  A noise signal with infinite frequency.

theory of jet lag- A good way to explain the feeling of jet lag.  I think of traveling and being tired.

mortal soul- Makes me think about religion.  I guess Damien doesn’t believe souls are immortal.

ghostly- I think Gibson puts this purposely in a ‘dark’ context.  His writing is almost kind of morbid.

umbilical-  This reminds be of a new born baby and an umbilical cord.  I also think of a connection.

like lost luggage- Your souls is lost, and you basically have to wait around for it to come back.

The first most interesting idea I found was the theory of jet lag.  It suggests that Damien has very peculiar yet creative thinking, and doesn’t hold back when expressing his own ideology.  This book’s theme is promoting a lot of free thinking, and doesn’t hold back.  Gibson wants us to get an essence of Damien’s personality, and his diverse thought process.

The second most interesting term I thought was ‘ghostly’.  I’m not sure if Damien uses this word to describe his theory, I think that Cayce might think of the theory using this word.  I think this reflects the character as well as the theme of the book rather ‘dark’ or depressing.  I think the author wants us to see the Cayce as sort of a depressed person.

The last phrase I found interesting was how in Damien’s theory he refers to the lagging souls as ‘lost luggage’.  Damien probably has other theories like this.  I thought this was a cool way to think about experiencing jet lag, and how you have to wait for your soul to catch up with you.  This suggests Gibson is probably going to be giving us a lot of visuals throughout the book, and we should constantly be illustrating what we read in our minds.

Convergence does not occur through media appliances, however sophisticated they may become.  Convergence occurs within the brains of individual consumers and through their social interactions with others. (Jenkins 3)

As technologically advanced media becomes, and however powerful it may be, it still isn’t the main reason for convergence.  With out people convergence wouldn’t exist.  Social interaction of individuals and networking brings convergence into the world.  This is exactly how the Wiki pages worked.  The web pages were made up of everyones contributions, not just one person.  This basically makes the Wiki collective intelligence because it is like the community is writing as opposed to an individual.  New ideas can be sparked and different points can be portrayed.  Our work on the wiki is an example of how people can edit, revise, collaborate, network, and come to general agreements with information.

The obvious but hard-to-grasp truth is that living with the media is today one of the main things American and many other human beings do.  (Gitlin 5)

This quote is stating that it is extremely hard to comprehend how much people use media in their everyday lives.  It often goes unnoticed but living with the media is one of the main things we do.  Gitlin was probably explaining how often we use the media and how important it is to people.

This quote also relates to my research question for English.  My topic is how the Internet affects and influences presidential campaigns.  The media has come a long way.  Television used to be a medium that brought most influence to people but now the Internet has taken over.  Campaigning via on-line continues to flourish, becoming a huge player in the 2008 presidential election.  It is now a key way of campaigning and one day might be the main way for candidates to reach out to the public.  

Today a cellphone can do anything, in-fact it has pretty much lost it’s original purpose.  It shouldn’t even be called a phone anymore.  You can take pictures, videos, play movies, music, cool ring tones, play games, text message, instant message, surf the internet.  I remember my first cell phone.  I got it my freshman year of high school.  My parents and I both thought it was necessary for since I was going to a school 25 minutes out of town.  It became one of the most useful devices I have ever used.  I can have everyone’s phone numbers all on my phone making it easy to call.  I found texting to be conveniant also.  Taking pictures is great when I want to remember something and don’t have a camera on me.  Now I have my cellphone on me no matter what.  I’m never constantly on it or using it, I just feel a sense of seecurity with my phone always with me.