Could YouTube become a political weapon of the people? That’s what an article on NewTeeVee suggests with some compelling argument.
It seems that citizen journalists are taking to trawling through YouTube looking for videos of politicians contradicting themselves as a means of bringing figures of power to account.
Without an appropriate means to propel such information forward within a meaningful political context however, 13 year old videos of Dick Cheney stating that occupying Iraq would be a bad idea simply get lost (probably among videos of people falling off their skateboards and faked alien abductions).
Put simply in order for YouTube videos to have any weighty bearing on political discourse, they need to appear in a context that nurtures and encourages that discourse exclusively.
Getting the jump on the situation is FORA.tv. With the tagline, ‘The World Is Thinking’, FORA.tv’s agenda is clear:
FORA.tv delivers discourse, discussions and debates on the world’s most interesting political, social and cultural issues, and enables viewers to join the conversation. It provides deep, unfiltered content, tools for self-expression and a place for the interactive community to gather online.
Such a system illustrates not only the potential for broadband video to reach outside of an entertainment context, but also the scope for the public to claim back the right to unbiased news in an age dogged by rampant cronyism in the media *points a big accusing finger at Fox News*.
In order for such a site to truly be of and for the people however, there need to be appropriate external tools to feed into the discourse via links and this is where YouTube currently falls short.
Sure there is a News and Politics category, but how about a dedicated news channel, where users can submit their own reports on current affairs and build audiences to match the Ask a Ninja and Ze Frank’s of this world?
We can only hope, in the meantime, videos of politicians contradicting themselves will probably continue to be little more than YouTube soundbites unfairly sandwiched between conspiracy videos about the iluminatae and the lunar landing.
[Via NewTeeVee]
