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.

Communities

I have a bad habit of limiting my Internet experience and am an extremely slow adopter to the online communities for a social outlet; I only use them when required for communication or for a class. A community that is completely mediated by the Internet is my online course for one of my comm. classes. I am actually taking two courses right now that are completely reliant on the Internet as a means of all interaction. If you wish to obviously speak to a person face to face it can be arranged.

Within the group we have several discussion boards and the option to email the professor. The only disadvantage, in my opinion is that there is no real interaction between students, not even in the discussion boards. We tend to post, leave it be and just add new threads, not elaborate on the existing.

The experiences that I have had online are limited as far as making actual bonds or connections with people. I do have a very limited association to my other class mates, but it usually focuses strictly on academic issues at hand. I do have to say in comparison to other more casual Internet communities common bonds and relationships are formed. In these less formal sites people are more likely to seek out this pseudo friendship in Internet communities.
"While some participants believe that people should only indicate meaningful relationships, it is primarily non-participants who perpetuate the expectation that Friending is the same as listing one’s closest buddies"(Boyd). Boyd's statement about 'friending' is more supportive of the notion than I am, I wouldn't even call them just a list of buddies but rather, for some, a list of anonymous people that you might only talk to a few on a regular basis. Boyd furhter explaines why all of these so called friends come from. "Saying no to someone can be tricky so some prefer to accept Friendship with someone they barely know rather than going through the socially awkward process of rejecting them"(Boyd). I think this is more commonplace on internet communites than anything, at least in the myspace realm.

This opinion I have of Internet communities is only due to my experience of people not responding or the painstaking anticipation of those 'oh so meaningful responses'; I would rather just call the person on the phone. I guess you could say I lack patients. You would assume that instant messaging would be a solution for a person like me, and it does help...but I do not live on the computer and neither does everyone else. Unless you set up a meeting time it can be hard to catch people.

I do wish that my online courses were a bit more relationship oriented, I think I would ask more questions and feel more confident about my work. There is almost no collaboration or even communication among peers- I think it could be much more interactive if everyone or the professor took the initiative to create the proper medium for our communication to take place.

Web App (Optional)

I'm a late poster with this one,but I recently discovered the beauty of Flickr & thought I would elaborate. The URL is www.flickr.com

I stumbled on the site for my own use this past week, although I have seen video clips an other applications on it before in class and from friends. Flickr is basically a way to share photos and clips for anyone to use and it is free. It is basically set up like a basic photo editor program with a small, easily readable menu. On Flickr you are able to share and organize photos for easy viewing and enjoyment for everyone. An added note anyone can add a tag or respond to a photo, much like you are sharing with someone in person.

The site is organized by running a search for a label or keyword that is linked to a photo or a group and the ability to upload photos from many applications allows a greater number of photos to be shared in the digital world. After all who doesn't have 700 photos on their hard drive and memory cards that we never look at. The website basically serves as a pseudo photo album.

The websites design is clean and minimalistic. Few but bright colors are used to reflect the style of today and those who use it, from what I imagine mostly a younger group under 30 at this juncture, but is a great tool for anyone at any age. Keeping it simple also reflects on the ease of using the site, it is very user-friendly and takes little effort to begin your own collections of photos to share with the world.

Socially the power here can effect a lot of average people. If you have access to the Internet you can use this very easy site. People can share information and save a lot of money to get their photos to their friends and family. There could also be some business applications too, depending on how their used (I am sure there may be more privacy issues there). This website can potentially, in the Hallmark sense bring them closer together through photo sharing. All in all this is more of a major convenience than way to change society. It just changes the way we photo share.

I love the idea of Flickr and I found it to be useful while looking for wedding ideas. And frankly i am more than ready to share my wedding photos too, how wonderful is it to be able to share all of your photos, not just the really good ones or the ones you have extra prints for and don't mind passing around the family. Now everyone has an opportunity to see them all and say what they want too. I have to say that is going to come in handy when my fiance's cousin wants to see the pictures in Thailand!

My re-first posting

Turning over a new leaf.

Well not really, I have been bogged down and I'm back. I'm sure it isn't a big deal to anyone but me. I have been out of the loop with a lot of things going on in my life.

I live in ski country and needless to say the weather is pleasant and sunny-Ha! Whatever I like the snow. If anyone watched the news and they refer to the 219, that is where I live. It is crazy out here. On Sunday there were eleven cars in the ditch or abandoned on one road.

I think the weather is clearing though, it hasn't snowed this evening at all.

Well onto another topic, I have had trouble blogging and I hope at least a few others have had trouble too! It makes me feel better about my technological deficiencies.
I have two unsuccessful blogs, I couldn't re-enter after I had signed off.

If you want to check out my sweet other blank sites I will post the links after I finally attempt it instead of reading about it. And eventually I hope to eliminate those empty sites once I figure out how to do that! I have a lot to do.

Well I will keep everyone up to date as I begin to develop my blogging skills!