YouTube and accountability
September 4th, 2007 by Mark Bahnisch | Published in Federal Elections, Film, TV, Video etc, Howardia, Media | 9 Comments
Last month, I had this to say in Crikey about Howard’s use of YouTube for policy announcements:
More generally, Howard is using YouTube similarly to his manipulation of talkback – announce the policy, avoid the press conference and the hard questions. The youth/new media angle also reinforces his attempt to refocus his image towards that of a strong, decisive leader, and to deflect criticisms that he is aging and out of touch.
Social media is Howard’s 21st century talkback radio. He can both amplify his message and control its reporting.
Over at Club Troppo, Nick Gruen reproduces a Crikey story from Richard Farmer which builds on this argument – the government are now using both radio “messages” and YouTube to highlight their message unmediated (as the feed is picked up directly for re-broadcast) and escape even the limited accountability you might get from talkback radio (interviewer, questions, no matter how soft). So YouTube isn’t just the new talkback for the Howard spinmeisters, it’s the talk without the back. If you thought that they took comments on YouTube seriously, you’d be seriously kidding yourself. There’s a heavy dose of irony here – new media praised for their interactivity and accountability are being used by political spinners to shut out interactivity and accountability.
Howard’s on YouTube spinning APEC. And comments are disabled with a moderation filter. So far none have gone through.
This is a once in a generation opportunity’. John Howard is also leading on climate change. Goodness gracious some people are cynical.
The secretary to the Treasury is also sceptical of Howard’s tactics and policies.
I’m not sure what is “new” here.
Haven’t “press releases” been a stock in trade of politicians, corporations, activist groups etc. for decades?
Lazy print journalists reproduce press releases without further work. If a lazy print or radio or TV journalist relies on a YouTube release, what’s the big deal?
Why get caught up in the hype, as consumer OR as critic?
Or do you think “the medium is the message”? [hmmmmm, not bad, not at all bad... Maybe I could pad out a whole book using a title like that,.... nah, no-one'd fall for that....:-)]
cheerio
ah, there’s nowt queer as ‘new’ media !
The difference lies in the fact that if you’re doing radio or tv, you can’t just read out a press release and therefore you have to seek a live audio/vidual – thus opening up the possibility of questions. Where you can just do a grab from an audio or video feed on the other hand… but yep, it plays further on the laziness of journos and editors.
Yes, the big difference here is that it allows radio and TV coverage to go the way of bad print reporting – cut and paste from the press release/podcast/YouTube – which means that all avenues of questioning can be cut off. They can use doorstops when they need to get out a rapid response, and the rest of the time can safely hide behind their NetAlertNotAlarmed danger filter and push their message out online.
The bottom line is that this will keep up unless either journalists or the public become more sophisticated consumers of political propaganda, forcing them to defend their message from critical analysis. We’re all doing our bit just by being here at LP, but there’s a lot of people who just believe what gets read off the teleprompter at them every night.
Yeh, this is just a press release with pictures.
It saves a graphic and a voice-over for the on-line editor.
Howard’s YouTube efforts will look like old music videos pretty soon.
Someone is going to invent a more appealing visual grammar for these things. The creative possibilities are endless.
Never mind the media listen to the message!?Yeah!?And how many friendly Australians will these dignats meet.And being of sound mind regularly,although everytime I see Howard still as PM. I wonder about that, how can he not understand he and all the associated well paid in the Sydney shindig that whatever they may say about the outcome of this meeting,whatever they may claim to themselves as superior in some manner of motivations,this APEC meeting has happened without any representative intent by voters to allow all these measures to take place.There has been nothing stated at previous election s State and Federal that account for the costs and measures.As a Australian the bill for this meeting should be paid directly by those participating in it and all those suffering a loss should have immediate and full compensation.Sydney is Australia, and Howard as much as he will allow himself to imagine he speaks for me, doesnt and never has.In visiting Bartletts site you will notice in a blog the attitudes of Brandis, and you can see Fulwood or whatever her name is doing a housewifes chore.She maybe not running a government,but she is the mouth piece and conciliator of smoothing the way,why hasnt Brandis been disciplined!?
I’m thinking that the YouTube audience is not really interested in Howard. Some the responses to his video messages have been quite funny and rude at times. I think it’s just another sign that Howard doesn’t get it and that his advisors are desperate.
There’s no ‘rabbit in the hat’ for Howard at YouTube, he just looks like an old dork trying to be cool.