One of the criticisms of e-democracy initiatives – for example, politicians using sites like Youtube – is that they represent a society dumbing down, disengaging with policy and embracing trivia.
Then you see what’s happening in the current US election.
In the last 24 hours, Barack Obama’s speech on race in American politics has received over 1.6m views on Youtube.
It’s 40 minutes long, sophisticated and almost entirely lacking in soundbites.
But perhaps an even better example of where we could be going is shown by this next video. What starts with a familiar setup – a vox-pop of a supporter being challenged about their candidate – turns into a real discussion of policy.
If you were editing TV news, you’d chop this off after 20 seconds. You wouldn’t think there was any appetite for this. It’s two guys, neither an expert, talking passionately about healthcare.
But this video has been viewed a million times.
Maybe Youtube videos, blogging MPs and online petitions don’t represent dumbing-down and trivia. Maybe they should be seen as what they are; experiments that could lead to more engaging, more meaningful and more inclusive politics.
Maybe we might end up talking about politics – as Jon Stewart said yesterday – like grown ups.
