Negative YouTube Clip Assails Huckabee Campaign
The power of so-called New Media is again on display as a YouTube political attack ad makes mainstream media headlines. Wired reports that a 58-second video vilifying Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has generated 47,955 hits since Thursday on the popular video Web site. The ad, made by 29-year-old Republican Keith Emis, criticizes the former governor of Arkansas for paroling incarcerated serial rapist Wayne Dumond, who murdered Carol Sue Shields upon his early release.
Emis collaborated with a friend who specializes in video production on the YouTube clip. The video recounts the circumstances surrounding Shield's death, beginning with a close-up of her mother, Lois Davidson, who grimly states that her daughter "won't be home for Christmas this year." Emis denies that he created the video to discredit Huckabee on behalf of another Republican candidate that he may support, like Fred Thompson, as some have suggested.
The YouTube piece marks the increasing influence of internet-based media on traditional media and, consequently, the American political arena, having prompted the Huckabee campaign to respond on the campaign Web site and on CNN (and posting the rejoinder on YouTube). Indeed, some pundits say the allegations that Huckabee pressed for Dumond's premature release may prove to be politically damaging. Others argue that his clean image as a Baptist Minister will not be tarnished by a Web-based media assault. Regardless, it is clear that the supremacy of traditional media in capturing the news and informing and influencing the public is being challenged by the all-access nature of the Internet.
Then again, pundits have been saying the Internet is making a big difference in elections for 10 years, but has the Internet ever really elected a president, or has it just created hype around candidates who eventually lose? Time will tell whether the Internet decides who won the 2008 presidential election.
From Wired
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