How Did The Television Revolutionized Politics

The invention of the television revolutionized politics. Beginning with the Kennedy-Nixon debates in the 1960 election, and continuing on to the present day, how a politician comes across on television has become a central part of the election. More recently, the rise of the smartphone once again revolutionized politics by giving people instant access to news and political updates, as well as pushing politics into everyday conversation to a much higher degree. Now, politicians once again have the opportunity to revolutionize politics through the use of the ever-growing video sharing platform YouTube. During his presidency, during the climax of the Great Depression, FDR began the tradition of addressing the American people directly through
As the internet has grown more popular, with online streaming services even replacing traditional television in some homes, virtually all politicians have expanded their campaigns to include social media, including Twitter and Facebook. And yet, no politician has truly utilized the power of YouTube. Since its launch in 2005, YouTube has helped to create and popularize a new form of video: the vlog, or video blog. Vlog creators, also called “vloggers,” sit in front of a camera and speak to their audience directly as if speaking to a friend, helping to create a sense of intimacy and foster trust between the creator and his audience. Vloggers have gained popularity especially with the younger generation. Vlogs have come a long way since their initial creation, however. Nowadays, there are many professional vlogs, sort of like particularly personal talk shows, such as the Crash Course series. Because these are hosted YouTube, which is still a social media website at its core, vlogs are inherently based around audience inclusion, helping to alleviate the intimidation and [separation] usually felt by everyday people when discussing more serious, and especially political, topics. While many talk shows attempt to connect with their audiences in the same way (for example, by reading and responding to tweets during
However, while these appearances can easily be found on YouTube, no politician has created their own YouTube-specific content on their own dedicated channel. To a degree, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is beginning to use YouTube to help garner support for her candidacy. However, the made-for-YouTube content posted by the campaign is extremely superficial, featuring videos with titles like “Can you tell us a fun story about a world leader you’ve met?” The non-superficial videos are not catered to an online audience; they include speeches, endorsements, and appearances that appear to have been originally created for television and simply reused on YouTube. There are no videos of Clinton speaking directly into a camera, specifically for an online audience, about the