ByGeorge!

November 2004

The Gloves Come Off Online

GW Report Details a Web of Mean-Spirited Partisan Attacks

By Matt Lindsay

GW’s Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet released Under the Radar and Over the Top: Independently-Produced Political Videos in the 2004 Presidential Election, a study of the independently produced political videos currently being circulated on the Internet. Along with the report, the institute hosted a panel of political and Web video experts on Oct. 20 to discuss partisanship, media coverage and new forms of political persuasion.

The institute’s report found political Web videos tend to be far more mean-spirited and partisan than the two most popular videos of the genre, JibJab’s “This Land is Your Land” and “Good to Be in DC,” which have been shown on national television broadcasts and viewed by millions of people.

The study found that these amateur videos are spread by E-mail and posted on political blogs (Web logs), giving them an underground currency that is larger than generally recognized. Because this activity occurs out of view of the political press, this new and growing phenomenon has largely escaped the media’s attention.

“These extremely partisan videos, which are traded among influential political activists who forward them to their large networks of friends and colleagues, are inciting an already polarized electorate,” said Carol C. Darr, director of the institute and co-author of the report. “This is a troubling trend, and one that will quickly trickle down to state and local races.”

The report, which forecasts the future of Web video as a political communication tool, found that:

• The polarizing effect of these videos is amplified by the fact that online political activists who find them and forward them tend to be more ideologically extreme than average citizens;

• Anonymous political videos are just over the horizon;

• These political videos can be produced by anyone with moderate technical skills and $1,000 worth of equipment and animation software; and

• Technology already makes it possible to convincingly distort the words and images of the candidates. Although the institute found only one such video in this election cycle, the specter of individuals or groups circulating deliberately false and misleading videos on the Internet is a real one.

The report, based on up-to-date research and lessons learned from the 2004 campaign, also discusses the institute’s online videologue of the political Web videos produced by the presidential campaigns, national party committees, so-called 527 organizations, other groups and individuals during this election season. The report can be accessed on the institute’s Web site at www.ipdi.org, and a collection of the videos can be viewed at http://www.ipdi.org/videolibrary.


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