WATCH
They create Web based spins that encourage people to develop online political debates, and they capitalize on people’s passion for popular culture, such as music, cinema and television, to promote their own ends
CHAPTERS
DISCLAIMER
Serious fun
What does it mean to be a citizen living in the empowerment age
How do politicians make use of grassroots communities to encourage citizens to participate in the political process?
What is the term used to define fusion between political activism and popular culture?
Which online political practice can be compared to that of the spoilers community?
Find out which are more popular in the U.S., phones or TV's.
GLOSSARY
Jenkins, H. (2008) Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide. U.S.A. New York: New York University Press.
Nielsen Media Research. (January 5, 2011). Factsheet: The U.S. Media Universe. Retrieved from http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2011/factsheet-the-u-s-media-universe.html
Facts & Figures
Test your knowledge by answering these questions about Chapter 6.
Photoshop for Democracy: The New Relationship between Politics and Popular Culture
Politics 2.0. A new age of citizen empowerment and popularization of government affairs.
Chapter 6
Nowadays, people have many possibilities and increased ability to challenge powerful institutions, and to participate and even shape the democratic process
What is the main difference between the traditional and the new media systems politicians use to communicate to the public?
Practice
CREATIVE TEAM
READ
THE AUTHOR & THE BOOK
Broadcast is a ‘one-to-many’ medium and new media are more ‘peer-to-peer’
Blogging
Traditionally, political candidates made use of broadcast media to communicate their ideas to the public. Nowadays however, as the expanding power of the Internet diminishes the power of broadcast media, the new political culture embodies a tension between two media systems: the one-to-many broadcast media vs. the peer-to-peer new media. Politicians are now expected to combine both systems in their campaigns, taking into account the accessibility and participatory nature of new media platforms to avoid political blunders and instead harness the power of media convergence and collective intelligence.
And what of private citizens? We are living in what Trippi calls an empowerment age, when people increasingly challenge powerful institutions; not just media corporations as we have seen so far, but also established governments. A prime example of citizens’ use of grassroots convergence to influence politics is blogging. In a way some blogging practices can be compared to the spoiling practices we discussed in chapter 1. Bloggers’ dissatisfaction with the increasingly biased mainstream media motivates them to unearth truths previously hidden from the public. However, while spoilers’ main aim is to unravel information, political bloggers are also interested in taking part in the democratic process by shaping future events. And just as with writers (i.e. bloggers), there are also designers who contribute to the democratic process. There are countless examples of Web-distributed Photoshop designs made as political spoofs, either to promote or criticize political candidates. Gamers are also participating in this process, as in the case of the 2004 elections that took place in Alphaville, one of the oldest and most populated towns in The Sims Online multiplayer game. The Alphaville elections even attracted national media attention as a serious debate over the results of the elections arose between a 13-year-old girl candidate and her 21-year-old male opponent. Regardless of the manner of which the debate ended, what is important about this democratic experiment is that through play people (even some too young to vote) found their voices as citizens and a community.
Naturally, politicians and political activists are learning from these cases how to mobilize the power of grassroots communities to encourage citizens to participate in the political process. For instance, in an incident during the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, both parties made use of new media to varying degrees of success; the Democratic party made an announcement via email, quickly followed by a Web based spin, courtesy of the Republican party, which in turn encouraged the public to further develop the topic online. But it does not end there. Politicians are also capitalizing on people’s passion for popular culture to promote their own ends. Take for example voter registration sites strategically set up in concerts and performances, films screenings utilized for political discussions events, and politicians making appearances on popular comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show.
As a matter of fact, such practices are in line with everything we have discussed so far in previous chapters. It is all about serious fun; institutions take after popular culture practices of grassroots communities in order to compete in the era of convergence culture. In the next and final chapter, we come back to the three concepts we opened with; media convergence, participatory culture and collective intelligence, discuss the implications of related media trends and draw conclusions.
LITERATURE
