The Influence of the Internet

The Courant has a new article about Sen. Dodd's attempt to appeal to the Internet crowd by using YouTube, blogs, and a straightforward website. It's nothing that many of you already don't know. Another article takes the focus off of Dodd into a more macroscopic piece about all of the presidential candidates. Again, the information is just old information rehashed for those who many not have heard it the first time, like the implications of the 1984 Clinton YouTube video.

I think campaign are putting too much of an emphasis on the potential impact of blogs and the Internet on the presidential election. The 1984 Clinton video, while entertaining, received three million views. About 150 million will vote in this upcoming election. For a small group of the population, the Internet has a large impact on how they view candidates, but for the rest of the voting population, maybe around 145 million, they could care less about YouTube videos or what the blogs are saying. The presidency will be won the old-fashioned way, and blogs and YouTube videos are truthfully just flashy distractions with little substance. The only time the Internet can really have any influence is when the mainstream media reports on it, like they have with the 1984 Clinton video or George Allen's macaca video. In and of itself, the blogosphere and YouTube have incredibly little political influence on the presidential level. The mainstream media still sets the agenda for presidential elections.

On another note, I realize that I have not been posting as often as I used to lately, so expect to see the frequency of posting dramatically increase.