New Matilda is now free! “From today all content will be available free of charge,” says editor José Borghino. “NewMatilda.com readers will no longer need to subscribe.” It’s free, apparently. Or, in other words, it costs nothing.
2007: The (Second) Last TV Election
The next time someone says we’re experiencing Australia’s “first Internet election” or our “first YouTube election”, slap them. Slap them very hard.
Our politicians only see the Internet and the emerging social media as a different kind of TV. YouTube is a place to post commercials, MySpace and Facebook for media releases. Their use of social media is so clueless that geeks attending PodCamp in Perth this Saturday were laughing.
Far from this being the “first Internet election”, it’s more like the The Last Television Election. Maybe the second-last.
Australia bans another video game
Australia, apparently, is the only western nation which doesn’t have an R18+ classification for video games. Which means Soldier of Fortune: Pay Back is banned ‘cos it’s too violent for MA15+. Personally I don’t care one way or another about these shoot-em-ups, but some consistency would be nice. Thanks to Peter Black for the pointer.
Politicians and Social Media: a catalogue of cluelessness
I’ll be in Perth on 27–28 October for PodCamp, the New Media Community UnConference, where I’m presenting a session on Social Media and the Federal Election.
While my first visit to Perth will be fun enough, I’m also enjoying researching my presentation. Australian politicians really don’t have a clue about this stuff.
Starting at the top of the food chain, John Howard’s MySpace profile is a disaster. The screenshot (right) records how it looked this morning — with a a broken rectangle obscuring part of the photo and adverts for the Labor party. Click for the full-size version.
MySpace is the world’s largest and best-known social media operation. Yet this profile doesn’t have anything to offer apart from a recycled media release. No blog entries. Not even any personal information beyond Howard’s age — reminding MySpace’s relatively youthful audience that he’s “old”.
How could John Howard’s personal profile not even mention cricket? If a profile contains even less information than we already know, why would we bother reading it? Why would we bother coming back?
At the other end of the spectrum — in more ways than one! — is Australian Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett.
Continue reading “Politicians and Social Media: a catalogue of cluelessness”
“Officially” is the new “literally”
“Labor, the party of the working class, has officially become the party of choice for intellectuals,” claimed The Australian last Thursday. Sorry, which “official” said this?
No, it wasn’t a Labor party official announcing a change in their funding source. Nor some mythical official spokesperson for “intellectuals” — could there ever be such a central organisation? No, the “official” is just the journalist who wrote the story, or his sub-editor.
In one way this is like that common mis-use of the word “literally”. As in: “Kevin Rudd was literally torn apart in Parliament this afternoon.” But there’s also some lovely propaganda at work — either because the journo thought it’d make it more dramatic, or because (heaven forbid!) The Australian is continuing its pro-Coalition stance.
A disposable John Howard
The other day I wrote about ordinary people making political advertising. Here’s another example.
Two weeks ago I met Stan, who’s created a giant portrait of John Howard constructed from beer bottle tops — because, he says, Howard has treated people as just as disposable.
He’s exhibited the portrait at various community events and made a video about it. And now he plans to tour the marginal electorates to make his point.
“I am not a member of any activist or political party. Until the extent of lies and deaths, I considered myself a very average Australian,” he says.
As I say, Australia’s first real Internet election campaign will be very interesting indeed…