When will the political conventions enter the Connected Age? That question has been bouncing around my mind recently as we at techPresident keep fielding phone calls from reporters doing stories on Barack Obama’s decision to announce his VP choice first by text message. Don’t get me wrong: It’s a great attention-grabbing gimmick, and it’s helping his campaign build a powerful new way to reach people (primarily the young), but it’s hardly a revolution in politics.When will the political conventions enter the Connected Age? That question has been bouncing around my mind recently as we at techPresident keep fielding phone calls from reporters doing stories on Barack Obama’s decision to announce his VP choice first by text message. Don’t get me wrong: It’s a great attention-grabbing gimmick, and it’s helping his campaign build a powerful new tool to reach people (primarily the young), but it’s hardly a revolution in politics.
The fuss over Obama’s TXT gimmick reminds me of the fuss over the credentialing of bloggers to the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston. The traditional press also went gaga over that, and I can still picture the steady stream of reporters who trooped up to the nosebleed section where the bloggers were seated, coming to do a feature story on the only new thing that was happening that year. “Are you blogging right now?” they’d breathlessly ask, as we sat with our laptops open.
It’s worth asking, though, why the convention organizers haven’t done more to re-imagine their extravaganzas in light of all the new technologies of participation spreading through society. Not only are these gatherings still completely geared for television (don’t tell the delegates, but they used to have a real role to play beyond being a colorful backdrop for TV anchors), they’re designed for television circa 1990.
TV today is far more interactive, but that cultural change–which is itself a response to competition from the interactive internet–doesn’t seem to have gotten through to the Hollywood producers and veteran lobbyists who, respectively, have long tackled the job of putting on the Democratic and Republican TV shows conventions.
Every week, something like 20 million watch shows like American Idol, and at the end of each show, millions of them vote on their favorite performers. No one is gaga about that use of text messaging; it’s hardly rocket science.
This week, something like 20 million people will tune in each night to watch the conventions, but I’d be surprised if either the Democrats or the Republicans try to create any kind of interactive community out of that audience. Yes, they did a YouTube contest to find a representative “average person” to give them a free pass to attend, and yes, they’re using tools like blogs and Flickr to keep us informed on how the conventions are taking shape. But in terms of making the actual events more engaging, they’re probably spending more time worrying about the timing of the balloon drop.
Think of it: All they need to do is put up a big banner behind the speakers each night saying, “Join the conversation; go to www.democrats.org” (or www.rnc.org) and set up an interface to involve people in live chats by state or zipcode. State delegations could be enlisted to participate. Or, if that’s too interactive for you, they could ask people to vote for their favorite speaker each night, just for fun. Or they could be promoting a contest to make a TV ad for the general election fight to come (stealing a page from the Mitt Romney campaign’s “Create Your Own Ad” contest).
Even without such efforts, it’s obvious that tens of thousands of people, maybe more, are going to be virtually participating in the conventions by creating and joining conversations online, or by going to convention watching parties in their neighbors’ homes. Check out the usage of the tags “dnc08” and “rnc08,/a>” on Twitter if you doubt me. Lots of people–not just credentialed bloggers–are going to be posting their own original content from Denver and Minneapolis. Big political community hubs like DailyKos or Townhall.com will experience a surge in traffic and comments.
Indeed, if there’s one lesson from the last two years, it’s that for millions of people, politics is no longer a spectator sport. We’ve gotten involved in co-creating the campaigns and co-shaping the public discourse, and we like it. We’re off the bus, out of the smoke-filled room, and crashing the gates. Old chokepoints like the presidential debates are bound to come under assault next. It’s surprising, though, that the conventional planners didn’t see this as more of an opportunity. Maybe next time?
August 22, 2008