Politics

Bogger's Name: Christina Abt
Title: Anatomy of an (authentic) American political campaign
URL: http://avoterschoice.blogspot.com/
Occupation: Politician in Eden
DOB: Friday, August 05, 2005
Rank: 2,924,506

This blog is obviously not a very visible blog or have a lot of public interest, but for purpose of this assignment it was a very well managed blog that I thought could be useful to the public, a politician and politician's office perspective. The construction of the blog is rather objective and specifically looks as the political process in the US, but more specifically the political process in the small town of Eden. The overall tone of the posts are constructive and give some insight to the political issues at hand in the WNY area, but mostly the blog examines a personal perspective of Abt's ongoing processes in town government. This is a last post on this blog and gives a pretty good sense of what Christina Abt was hoping to accomplish.
"Most of all, I hope that my willingness to give of my time, effort and energy to make the election process a legal one will encourage people in Eden and across Western New York to make more of an effort to vote and to get involved. If I have made that difference, then it was all worthwhile".

This blog was intended to give the average voter some insight to the political process and could have been a very good opportunity for a politician to directly relate to the public, however a lot of the posts have zero feedback. I do definitely believe that the action on the site would have improved if her political demographic wasn't in Eden, not to say that they are not on the Internet but I do think that they are late adopters and probably were not looking for a political influence or information on the Internet.

I do believe that the Internet in many realms greatly affects the political process and aids in democracy. Everyone has a voice and the ability to create a potentially damaging website like the recent newsworthy Hillary video on Flickr, a constructive blog like Abt's, a debate blog or anything else that can touch on a political campaign or issues. I think that it is detrimental to advance with the new forms of reaching the public, especially now when the Internet is such a vital aspect of many people's lives, weather it be information based, professional, or for social purposes.

"Instead of reporting on politics, the media are active participants in the political process through their role in publicity. Increasingly, the media has become central to political life. Politicians who do not constantly stay abreast of the media's requirements and actively plan their publicity tend to fall quickly out of favour. Those who are not good 'media performers' suffer the same fate"(Thornton 8).

This quote reflects how this can be handled, especially looking at the upcoming presidential election and all the buzz surrounding it. Hillary, instead of crumbling from the unneeded press attention for the numerous parodies and slanderous websites, rather took it in stride and on the Today Show turned the whole PR mess into a positive. Hillary can handle the media and I believe that her early attempts to activate her campaign on the Internet has given her an edge with the public and especially younger voters. It is important to handle these scrutinizing situations well and I think that she does. In today's media where anyone can create a website or an attention grabbing video it can become viral and can potentially sway public opinion.

"An important distinction between public opinion as a critical authority balancing political and social power, and public opinion as something than publicity can manipulate to support people, institutions, products or programs" (Habermas, 1989:236); (Thornton 11).
I think this point is now more critical than ever. True the public opinion always has had great influence but as said before things have changed and instead of only being able to reach the American public by means of printed circulars used in the early elections of the US, a thought or idea can instantly be put into a public forum and could easily gain power and others support or resistance relatively easily. This approach applies to all forms of politics not just on a national level, but on a local level too; as you can see by Abt's blog.

In short I think that blogs are affecting local governments in a great way, opening up doors and means of effective communication between politicians and the public. These ways of communicating create a relatively small forum to discuss issues that those in that group care about most. In the same note anyone who has an issue about the government or a road that needs repair can start to get the backing and reach those who have the same interest with little effort.