Jenkins Reading

I want to focus mainly on some of the beginning statements that Jenkin makes when discussing Joe Trippi's book "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". Trippi's book is flawed in the way that Jenkins offers, "The slogan began self-fulfilling prophecy. If the Internet made Dean's candidacy, Television unmade it." If Trippi believed that The Revolution Won't Be Televised because the new medium for politics is the web, the truth is that the revolution will be televised, because Internet support isn't enough.

Take the candidacy of the unlikely Republican Ron Paul. Through support of many different websites, namely the fanatics on Digg, Ron Paul set single-day fundraising records. But this outpouring of support was not enough to support a long shot candidate like Ron Paul. While he represented a genuinely disaffected wing of the apathetic conservative Republicans, these relatively few, but dedicated supporters were not enough to spread his message. I see reflected in this example, and all the time on blogs like The Daily Kos the fact that those involved in relatively ideologically homogenous on-line communities tend to over represent their own views as reflecting the public.

On the other end, Barack Obama's campaign has extremely successfully utilized the amplified power of the individual on the internet to fuel his campaign. The difference is that Obama has a message that the masses are willing to believe in. Howard Dean's netroots organization allowed him to win Iowa, but once he got into the mainstream, his enthusiasm was taken without any context. Obama, on the other hand, was able to utilize his youthful exuberance to motivate netroots by offering a host of well though-out tools to help supporters spread the word. But when he was projected into the role of a mainstream viable candidate, he was ready. This smooth transition stems from one thing; he surrounded his campaign with extremely adept advisers, many of them ex-Clinton operatives.

Notably absent from his advisers is Joe Trippi, who signed on to direct Edwards now defunct campaign. Jenkin's criticism of Trippi, I believe is extremely profound. The internet, as Jenkin argues, is just a new technology that makes grassroots organization easier, by no means is it a way of entirely subverting the tradition of commercial politics. It only serves to work in conjunction with campaigns that are capable of utilizing it to the best of their abilities as a significant portion of a robust campaign plan.