Blog the Vote

According to a story in yesterday’s Washington Post, political candidates wooing younger voters should skip the ads and blog. The story, by Brian Krebs, cites a study sponsored by the Council for Excellence in Government’s Center for Democracy and Citizenship program and the Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement center at the University of Maryland.

According to Mr. Krebs, “The survey suggests that the Internet is most effective for candidates pursuing young people who are already interested in politics or passionate about certain key issues.”

As I blogged on Thursday, NetGenners’ attitudes will be a fair bit different from previous generations. Sometimes, I worry too different. Looking at North America, there has been tenable continuity for many hundreds of years. But, the last twenty-five years has ushered in unprecedented change in living. I worry this change will erode continuity, particularly in cultural heritage, the arts and literature.

I sometimes wince in surprise, when watching movies as recent as 1980s, where characters are out of reach because there is no telephone nearby. The jolt: Reminder that people didn’t have cell phones. I drive a second-hand Volvo that has a Motorola radio for the original owner’s car phone. Mobility in 1989 was the car phone, not yet the cell phone.

Factor in the PC, the Internet or digital content distribution, and the amount of change in even 10 years is mind-boggling. I listen to streamed, radio-like music using MusicMatch on my PC, not random songs like on the real radio but organized by artist or genre. If a song plays that I really like, one button click lets me buy the song and download it to my PC. That’s innovation less than a year old, but a transforming factor on purchasing behavior.

What dramatic changes are ahead? Check back in six months.

Photo Credit: Chris Stoichiometry