23rd May 2006

Podcasting politicos

posted in blogs, disruptive-technology, podcasting, politics |

Podcasting continues to get more mainstream. According to yesterday’s article “Politicians Get Help in New Online Media:”

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., responds on a weekly basis to questions on his blog. He also is among several politicians who have recorded podcasts, self-made audio or video broadcasts that can be downloaded from the Internet to a computer or portable gadget.

The former heart surgeon who is considering a 2008 presidential bid said he saw the power of podcasts when one in which he discussed avian flu was featured on a conservative blog and downloaded a million times.

iFrist Podcasts

If you want to reach younger voters and those oriented to new media, Frist’s approach with the iFrist Podcast channel looks like a winner. I’ve subscribed to check out what he’s saying, and I’m not even one of his constituents! (At least not unless he declares for the 2008 Presidential race.)

Frist also has a blog available on www.volpac.org/blog. Other Republicans are blogging on the “Blogs for Bush” site.

Think digital social networking is just frivolity and “stranger danger” moments for youth as well as adults? Think again!

(BTW, don’t consider this blog post a blanket endorsement by me for Frist or the Republican agenda. Honestly I wish we had more political choices than our current Democratic / Republican options. But that is really a topic for another post.)

For more related to these issues, check out the Personal Democracy Forum mentioned in the initial article. According to the organization’s manifesto:

Democracy in America is changing.

A new force, rooted in new tools and practices built on and around the Internet, is rising alongside the old system of capital-intensive broadcast politics.

Today, for almost no money, anyone can be a reporter, a community organizer, an ad-maker, a publisher, a money-raiser, or a leader.

If what they have to say is compelling, it will spread.

The cost of finding like-minded souls, banding together, and speaking to the powerful has dropped to almost zero.

Networked voices are reviving the civic conversation.

More people, everyday, are discovering this new power. After years of being treated like passive subjects of marketing and manipulation, they want to be heard.

Welcome to the revolution, my friends. This isn’t a spectator event. This is participatory social action. Get online and get involved. Get blogging and get your students blogging. We are the voices of the new democracy.

On this day..

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006 at 8:49 am and is filed under blogs, disruptive-technology, podcasting, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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