CNN hyped last night's Democratic presidential debate at The Citadel in South Carolina as "revolutionary" because real people got to ask questions on video. Some students of politics and the media said the event would do for interactive Web 2.0 what the Kennedy-Nixon debates did for TV. Others called it just a tiny step forward, because CNN got to decide which questions the candidates had to respond to. Some 3000 thousand people submitted amateur videos that tackled everything from serious policy questions to sophomoric humor, including a question on global warming that came from an animated snowman. Did the format make for entertaining TV? Were the candidates more authentic? Did it finally come down to politics as usual?
Will YouTube and Web 2.0 Change American Politics?
Credits
Guests:
- Lee Bandy - Political Columnist, The State
- Peter Leyden - Director of the New Politics Institute
- Micah Sifry - Executive Editor of TechPresident.com
- John Alexander Nicholson - Doctoral student at the University of South Carolina
- Mary Anne Ostrom - Political Reporter, San Jose Mercury-News