Friday, September 12, 2008

Blogger Sarah Palin?

In an article on September 11, Wired discovers the "many faces of Sarah Palin online."   In her spare time, the Republican vice presidential nominee blogs, tweets and produces YouTube videos ... wait how could the mother of 5 have extra time for that?  Since John McCain announced the governor of Alaska as his running mate, Sarah Palin parodies have been popping up on the Internet more frequently.  There are YouTube videos where "Palin" raps, blogs with frequent misspellings, and tweets about her ex-boyfriends and Cindy McCain.

These parodies are actually getting thousands of hits and have people checking them daily.  The "FakeSarahPalin" Twitter site has almost 3,000 followers and the "Palindrome" blog has dozens of in-bound links.  A recent post raising buzz is the "Pre-Interview Worksheet" of suggested themes to discuss for her interview with Charles Gibson that was on Thursday night.  Also, the YouTube impersonator is 27-year-old New Yorker, Sara Benincasa, who's most popular vlog was posted on Labor Day receiving 163,000 views, and who's videos have been featured on CNN. Benincasa says "she chose to parody Palin because she finds McCain's choice of a vice president 'absurd' and 'disturbing.'"

How is the Internet in this election affecting this campaign?  These parodies have been noted by some columnists as having a "sneering" tone of liberal commentators, so could these parodies be actually helping the side that they are trying to criticize?  With no censorship on the Internet, nominees have no regulation of these vlogs and posts, which could be influencing thousands of citizens' political opinions.

-- Jessica I.
 

1 comment:

Innovation Journalism said...

According to a New York Times investigative article, Ms. Palin has spent a lot of time at home, rather than in her office or on the legislative floor with other lawmakers, as governor of Alaska. Maybe that's where she found the time to blog so much?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

As for mud-slinging on the campaign trail leaving mud trails on the Web, should we be surprised? People are going to do their snide 'dissing, whatever the medium, especially when they feel strongly against a political candidate.

But what if more people cranked up their creativity, and really made a difference with entertaining AND compellingly informative, insightful AND innovative videos on the issues? Now those are some vids I would watch.

- Misako M.