Politics, Blogs, and Education?

Another post I've been meaning to write about for several days and just couldn't find the time...

I was surfing channels on my television recently and saw an ad for an upcoming episode of the Chris Mathews Show. In the ad, Chris Mathews is plugging away at a guest whose opinion had to do with the upcoming presidential election and what bloggers have to say about the candidates. What hit me about this ad, is that Mathews berates the guest as to not having credited sources for the topic at hand. The guest attempts to explain that the blogosphere itself and the authors of these blogs is their source, however, Mathews cuts the guest off and I for one was left feeling that we, the audience, are supposed to think these "bloggers" have no idea what they're talking about.

Now why am I blogging about this? Because I feel that bloggers do know what they're talking about and that Mathews is missing a very large picture to our nation's and our world's future. I found this ad to be ironic, especially because both presidential candidates are using the Internet and blogs and youtube in particular, in ways never imaginable before now. A few months ago, two of my friends, who are very strict democrats, showed me how celebrities were supporting Obama on youtube. I had never really done much with it before and was very surprised to see music videos dedicated to his campaign! There was even one that had cut quotes from his speeches and was put to music! I all of sudden realized that this was going to be a very different campaign. But how could I use this? My head started going into overdrive with ideas for work.

On the flip side, before school ended I had discovered McCain's daughter's blog. She wasn't blogging quite the way I've seen typical blogs, and there were more pictures than I was used to, but she was blogging on the campaign trail and spreading the word.

So basically, the idea I'm trying to get at here is...how is the Internet and bloggers, specifically, not effecting this election and why would someone say that what they are saying on the Internet has no credibility outside the Internet? These candidates are smart...they are going straight at my generation and where they are located the most...the Internet.

I do realize that he is also a journalist and that he may think of "sources" in a different way than I am. I graduated with a degree in journalism and a source had to be reliable. I could see where someone posting on the Internet would not always be reliable. We certainly didn't talk about the impact of the Internet on journalism or other topics, because this problem didn't exist six years ago. Yes, six years ago! We're on a different playing ground now, where anyone can be a journalist in a matter of seconds. I get that...but will others miss how blogs are changing things, just as Mathews seems to have?

In terms of education, we need to think about how to prepare our students for these growing changes. Could elections be completely online one day...like testing? Will they only see political ads on the Internet, instead of t.v.? What if you had the power to just skip them, similar to skipping or closing a pop up window on ads now? Would that change outcomes? What about what our students may write about future elections? Will something they say, change the course of the future?