Palin vs Obama- The Impact of Youtube Elections on the American Political System

One important aspect of the mass media today is the ability for average people to use their cell phones to capture politicians on camera, making mistakes, making speeches, blundering, or doing nice things. The ability to capture the everyday politician on film, out of his environment and unscripted, and then post that video on a video-sharing site so that it can be seen by thousands of people around the world is going to affect our political system.

In my opinion, this 'youtube election' effect will have both good and bad aspects to it. Because politicians know that everything they say and do will now be filmed and put online, they may react to this by making few direct pointed statements and saying little. Politicians could increasing be expert sophists- people who have a general knowledge of some things and communicate that general knowledge in soaring rhetoric, and if lacking in knowledge or specifics, able to gloss over that by using words to dazzle and awe an audience. Politicians will increasingly become humorless, as they fear their comments being taken out of context and used against them. And voters will increasingly fall into an endless loop of judging a candidate based on one misspoken thought taken out of context or a joke that didn't really land, and could be forced to then vote for the empty suit, who disguises their general lack of qualifications for office through the use of well spoken words and has no bad jokes to be thrown against them since they never joke around. The worst of the 'youtube election' effect will produce a President Barack Obama.

Or perhaps the worst of the 'youtube election' effect will produce a Governor Sarah Palin. Rather than hiding behind soaring rhetoric and sophistry, rather than avoiding all pointed statements or jokes for fear of them being used against them, a politician may decide to overload the system with comments, jokes, and images of them, so that the sheer mass and volume of information that they pour into the internet will overwhelm any negative images, jokes taken out of context, or misstatements or quotes. A politician will be be forced to be more honest and direct with voters, giving them unprecedented access to their lives and views, because they know that it will be harder and harder to hide their true beliefs, especially if they are lacking in rhetorical skill or their supporters don't buy their sophistry as easily. They'll respond by tweeting and producing a reality show about their lives, like Palin did.

Yes, we can see in the emptiness that is Obama and the oversharing that is Palin the effect that the mass media is having on our political system. You can either choose to get caught up in the soaring rhetoric that marks the best of Obama's speeches, where he says amazing things that mean nothing and speaks nothingness with some amazing ability, or you can settle in with some popcorn and a coke and watch Sarah Palin and her family in her newest reality TV show, Sarah Palin's Alaska, on TLC. Either way, you'll be seeing all the new ways that the mass media impacts our political system.

Obama's book is The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Vintage) and Palin's book is Going Rogue: An American Life.