Intolerance? Paranoia? How could this be?
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This is just outrageously funny! Apparently certain people believe that the Internet belongs to them and and it must be a dangerous conspiracy if certain other people use the same technology. I can just hear them sputtering: "WE are the Netroots. What the heck are YOU doing here?"
Let us look back, for a moment, to the dark days when Bill Clinton was president and Conservative folks found fellowship at FreeRepublic.com. The Internet of today is the very same hothouse that produced the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. It explains two terms for President George W. Bush. It explains how Republicans held onto the majority in the House in 2002. It even explains the GOP's superior fundraising.
But let's get back to the people who think THEY own the Internet:
Example #1 - Michelle Malkin added a Digg button to her blog posts. Readers used the button. Horrified users of Digg.com howled in protest: "fascist trash...right-wing media machine...ban anything from her site..." Michelle wrote:
How dare conservatives take advantage of user-generated ranking structures for news like everyone else!
If you're a liberal who puts the Digg button on your site and encourages your readers to use it, you're a social-networking revolutionary.
If you're a conservative who does the same, you are master of "gaming" and "spamming" and"controlling" the system.
Example #2 - Matthew Sheffield of NewsBusters.org points out a very paranoid-sounding article from the Wall Street Journal, of all places. They discovered that a cute flash cartoon available at YouTube.com was posted to that web site by someone using a computer belonging to a lobbying firm, DCI Group. And guess what! DCI has connections to ExxonMobil!
The authors of this story, Antonio Regalado and Dionne Searcey (summer interns?), need no more proof than that to accept that chicanery is afoot. It's the dreaded monster Propaganda!
The anti-Gore video represents a less well-known side of YouTube. As its popularity has exploded, the public video-sharing site has drawn marketers looking to build buzz for new music releases and summer blockbusters. Now, it's being tapped by political operatives, public relations experts and ad agencies to sway opinions.
...Web video operates on a different level, stimulating viewers' emotions powerfully and directly...
Internet videos could prove particularly potent, because they may influence watchers in ways they don't realize.
Remember when we were kids and grown-up people tried to tell us that watching cartoons would rot our brains?
Matthew puts all this consternation back into perspective:
Call me crazy, but isn't the entire point of "Inconvenient" to score political points and to "harden" people who have casually bought into the idea of human-caused global warming? (Oh, and make people think Al Gore is cool.) Doesn't our fearless reportorial duo feel even a little bit weird about comparing, at "worst," a viral video produced for under 3k with a "documentary" film costing far more, promoted by Paramount, the creator of the "Simpsons," and basically every MSM outlet?
Update: Well, okay! A Google search shows that Antonio Regalado and Dionne Searcey, the above-mentioned reporters, are probably more experienced than summer interns. You just wouldn't know it by reading this particular article.
