I originally posted this on my blog and wanted to share it with the Consortium readers as well, considering C3's particular interest in online video and participatory culture in its current research.
A few weeks ago, Stephen Duncombe, author of Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy, and I held a public conversation about "From Participatory Culture to Participatory Democracy: Politics in the Age of YouTube" at Otis College. The conversation ranged across many aspects of the current campaign season -- from "Obama Girl" to Huckabee's relationship to Chuck Norris, from The Daily Show to this anti-Hillary video -- suggesting the ways that social networks and participatory culture have impacted this most unlikely of campaign seasons.
Otis has now release a YouTube video featuring highlights of the exchange, mostly focused on the Obama campaign.
As I noted in my original post, I've been in Austin, Texas where Steven Johnson (Everything Bad Is Good For You) and I engaged in a conversation about the contemporary media landscape in the opening of South by Southwest this year. I also presented some of my work on YouTube, participatory culture, and U.S. politics and democracy at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Philadelphia on Friday. Stay tuned to the Consortium blog for notes from SCMS throughout the week.
