Jib-Jabbing

Having been an RA at IPDI when "Under the Radar and Over the Top" was drafted, I'm pretty familiar with the material and personally spent several weeks scouring the Internet for web videos. With the benefit of post-Election hindsight, I'm struck by two observations:

(1) The impact of Flash. Eric Blumrich, who made some pretty intense anti-Bush movies in Flash, commented on this for the report and also at the panel we held at GWU. His point was that Flash is relatively easy to learn and master, and anyone with a few hours can put together some pretty incendiary political advertisements/movies. Flash is interesting because, unless you're working with a very high skill set, it retains a crude quality -- but that may be a part of the appeal. It makes it look underground and real, not unlike Edwards' podcasts, which (I believe) are edited to look purposefully like they have a human touch.

(2) In thinking about our past conversations about the digital divide, and in reference to the report's reference to high bandwidth as a requirement for viewing streaming video, it seems like the circulation of these videos, while powerful, remains within a very specific demographic. We're talking about people who either have high-speed Internet at home, or more likely, have it at college or work. Which means we're largely talking about white-collar workers with desk jobs. I don't doubt that these videos can be powerful--I've seen them myself--but I do think it's important to remember that their effectiveness is generally restricted to a segment of the population. Are there technologies (such as Flash?) that can help make web videos more accessible?

Additional thought -- we can't forget that some organizations professionally produce videos that go straight-to-Web. For instance, Robert Greenwald, director of Outfoxed, produced a video for Progressive Majority. We show it at receptions and such, but it's mostly viewed on our web site. A great option for non-profits or campaigns for whom buying air time doesn't make sense.