online video

It's an MTV-packed day. I just got two items in my inbox alerting me to some more political innovation from MTV.

The first comes from Josh Levy of Tech President, who alerted me to the fact that later today MTV is set to launch Think MTV, a social networking site focused on activism and politics that will incorporate some video features similar to YouTube.

Levy notes that this may be a sign of MTV's desperation to compete against companies like FaceBook, MySpace and YouTube who are invading their market share and have probably long since eclipsed the network at the cutting edge of youth culture. I see Levy's point, and I've long been skeptical of attempts by companies and organizations to set up their own social networks, yet the Think MTV site looks pretty slick, and with their 50-state Vlogger strategy, MTV certainly will have a lot of interesting content to populate the video feeds. Right now Think MTV is only open to 14 year olds through "recent college grads" and non profits with verifiable EIN numbers. I've applied for PR "invite" to the site and will write a thorough review if I get access.

The second item to hit my inbox in the last couple hours is a press release for a forum on Immigration at Cal State University in Los Angeles. The event will be held on September 29th and will be immediately followed by the premier of True Life: I Live on the Border, a documentary about three young people on different sides of the issue.

I found MTVs contributions in 2004 to be somewhat lackluster, but they are really taking the lead this cycle in developing compelling media strategies to engage young people in both the election and more esoteric public policy discussions. I think maybe an in-depth, birdseye view of their activities is in order, as well as some digging into how this radical change in their election programming came about.

I'm way late on this - I first got a tip about it from the campaign and even a commenter here on FM days ago - but I think it's still worthwhile.

It starts out fairly slow, but seems like a pretty sound piece overall. The historical parallels are powerful, as are the student testimonials. It's a slickly produced segment, and if you are already leaning towards Obama, it's the type of thing that really will make you feel like part of a movement. For those who aren't digging on Obama, look at it this way: if Dean had released this in Sept. 2003, people would have eaten it up.

On the Obama website, the video is coupled with an ask to "tell a friend." I don't expect it to create many converts to the cause for Obama that the campaign wouldn't have gotten anyway. It's the beginning of the school year and the real "start" of the campaign season. After Labor Day is when folks really start to pay attention. Obama would have gotten a big student bump this month no matter what happened.

As it is, this is an inspiring piece to rally the faithful in Iowa, New Hampshire, and across the nation. Obama will need that energy if he's going to survive the primaries - something that looks more and more unlikely every day. This tvideo will net him more bodies within each SFBO chapter, and hopefully more new chapters in more diverse locations, but he's still got to turn those bodies into effective caucus-goers. That's the next, and most important step.

Yes, it's true. Somewhat apropos of Alice's post about Playboy on MySpace, I'm now luring people to the website with images of scantily clad women (but thankfully not Obama Girl).

Actually, this is one of four new PSAs from Declare Yourself and the folks behind Reno 911. These videos are almost as good as the last batch and still about ten cuts above the rest of the field when it comes to PSAs aimed to increase civic engagement among young people. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like they're making that much of a splash.

Looking at the number of views for each of the previous four videos, none of them are above a few thousand. Fairly paltry for what looks to be a pretty good attempt at creating a viral video, and leading me to wonder what other distribution outlets they're using. Are these videos just sitting on YouTube, or are they pushing them through outlets other than their (presumably old) email list?

And why not run these on TV? Norman Lear, the money man behind Declare Yourself is an old TV-producer and responsible for some of the biggest hits in latter half of the 20th C. He's got the money to afford some pretty ambitious ad-buys between now and November 2008. And he's got the smarts to know that, for all the buzz about the internet, kids still do watch TV. Maybe they're waiting for the fall when everyone is back at school and we start to approach the 2007 election, but why not by some ads during the Daily Show or Adult Swim?

More new videos after the jump.

Here's some video and a few links for a lazy Saturday:

• Ever wonder just what it is, exactly, that ActBlue does around here? My buddy Nate explains it all in this three minute video (embedding disabled. Again. What's up with that?).
• Bill Mahr handles O'Reilly easily in this interview, but goes for the easy joke and takes a sideswipe at young voters. WTF? Crooks and Liars has the video.
• In an appeal to us young'ns, Connecticut is going to create downloadable videos explaining the ins and outs of new optical scan voting machines. I appreciate the effort, but somehow don't see this as really working out . . .
• Election Geek puts their finger on something that's been bothering me for a long time. I was an avid reader of the Dean Nation weblog in 2003 and 2004, but now II no longer do more than skim the candidate blogs. Election Geek lays out the reason why in this Mad-Libs style post.
  

• Rock the Vote blog has an excellent post on how anyone can do DIY voter analysis using Census data and some cheap software. The instructions are meticulous and slightly intimidating, but the writer makes it sound like something you could figure out in an afternoon. I've got to give that a try . . .
• YouTube announced that you will soon be able to sort candidate videos by issue, making a nice little tool for compare/contrast purposes.
• Three interesting things to check out for those interested in how the evangelicals (and other young people of faith) are doing it these days: Youthroots - a social networking site for people of faith; BattleCry - the online home of a (crazy/scary) hipster evangelical movement; and with young evangelicals worrying about poverty and global warming, the WireTap Blog asks "Is God now progressive?"
• The New America Foundation documents how our generation's GI's are getting the shaft when they return home from duty:
  

  Although military recruiting literature trumpets educational benefits of up to $72,900, for most recruits the benefit tops out at $38,700. That works out to $1,075 a month for 36 months. It might sound like a lot to a teenager looking for help with college, but it’s only 75 percent of the average cost of attendance at a public four-year-college or university. To be eligible for those benefits, servicemen and women have to contribute $1,200 up front, out of their own pockets, during their first two years of service. Virtually all do so, but nearly one-in-three never collect any educational benefits, and they don’t get a refund. Most important, GI Bill benefits are counted as student financial resources when veterans apply for federal student financial aid, making many veterans ineligible for Pell Grants or subsidized student loans that could fill the gap. For recruits from low-income backgrounds, that’s a huge loss.

• Barack Obama is scheduled to be on the Daily Show on Wednesday the 22nd.
• Check out this podcast of Anya Kamenetz of Generation Debt.

For your afternoon viewing pleasure. And if you've missed it, YouTube is planning to depose both Stewart and Colbert in their case against Viacom.

John Edwards and Barack Obama released their education plans this week. Both are proposing solid first steps to reduce the burden that rising tuition places on students and eliminate some of the most egregious abuses of the government/corporate lending system.

The plans are both good (and I'll post a head to head review of both plans later this week) but I'd like to see the candidates take it a step further.

As Jonathan Singer and Peter Levine have both noted, Obama and Edwards are taking a somewhat original approach to organizing their campaigns. In addition to asking for traditional campaign support - volunteer hours, donations, and local organizing - these campaigns are asking their supporters to take action on specific policy issues. John Edwards has been doing this for months - indeed, his entire campaign is designed around the idea that he and his supporters need to be the change they want to see. That's the whole idea behind OneCorps, Edwards' dual community service/campaign organization. So far, OneCorps has asked members to support the troops by stopping the war and reduce their carbon footprint, among other actions. Barack Obama's campaign seems to be following suit. He recently asked his supporters to contact their Senators and Congressmen to end the war. In short, these candidates are organizing their followers to impact policy before they are elected to higher office as a way of campaigning to attain that office.

Nobody's hit a home run with this type of organizing yet, but so far I like it. Seeing a candidate engage in direct action before attaining higher office can help defuse the initial skepticism of politicians and politics that many voters - particularly younger voters - feel. These action campaigns show voters that the candidates are about more than words. This isn't "trust what I say, not what I do." Rather than force voters to take it on faith that a candidate will live up to his/her rhetoric once they are in office, these campaigns are showing now how they would act on some of the major issues of the day for young voters.

That's why, following on the release of their education plans, I'd like to see these - and all - candidates organize students to take action on two major policy proposals new before Congress: the Student Loan Sunshine Act and the renewal of the Higher Education Act (pdf).

Here's what I think that would look like:

I want to riff for a minute on the sort of unspoken subtext of Josh's blog about Imus, and the spoken text of his comment here:

I also think we all should be on TV. All the time. Seriously, have you seen what’s on TV? It’s terrible. Steward and Colbert are good, but I’m waiting waiting waiting for someone or something to break out and do high-end politics with an angle towards quality, lively presentation and real relevance. The re-invention of the TV drama should have some echo in the news/politics end of the spectrum, right? Right???

This seems like an opening. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of my friends linking to somewhat silly youtube videos that make what I could call a C+ effort at engaging the bigger picture.

He is totally right. There is no reason these jokers should so completely dominate our airwaves, and the cost of producing our own content is so minimal that there aren't really any barriers to entry anymore.

The biggest problem seems to me that Josh is implying that we need to take over the broadcast airwaves, not just narrow cast our stuff over the internet or join that Gen-X dominated media "middle class" that is developing over at Current TV. There's no quick way to do that. The number of available jobs where a young person might actually hold a position of influence to a broadcast audience just aren't there.

More after the jump.