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The New Communications World
On Tuesday I participated in a teleseminar for the Public Relations Society of America. The topic was blogging, podcasting, and use of the new tools of technology in politics. Other presenters included Rep. John Dougall, a blogger, Jennifer Napier-Pearce, a podcaster, and Warren Abrogast a tech consultant in Washington, D.C. Val Hale, from Utah Valley State College, was the host.
You can read Dougall’s cogent comments on his blog.
I tried to make a couple of key points: We are still only in the early stages of an enormous revolution that is causing great upheaval in the communications world. The barriers to entry are almost entirely gone, and anyone, anywhere, can become a publisher or a broadcaster, using text, audio and video. You don’t have to own a printing press or a broadcast tower on a mountain. You just have to have an Internet connection and some inexpensive equipment (and something interesting to say).
The most important thing to understand in the short term is that all forms of communications are rapidly moving to the Web. We will access all manner and forms of text, audio, video, graphics, etc., over the Web whether the product is a newspaper, a movie, a television show, a radio program, a magazine, a song, or a telephone conversation. It’s all going to the Web. And the Web has enormous advantages over typical broadcast or print delivery because it is interactive. You can do so much more with a Web-delivered TV show or newspaper, for example. For one thing, you can get it on-demand, not just when it’s initially shown. A newspaper can be updated continuously, instead of once a day. With all Web communications, you can click for related information, immediately buy a product advertised, and so on. Web-delivered content is much richer and more flexible.
Television channels and networks are simply going to become high-powered Web sites, or Web channels, as I prefer to call them. Some of the biggest Web companies in the world, like Yahoo, are going to offer movies, sports, television shows, radio shows, songs, newspapers, magazines, on demand, on the Web.
The big players will try to appeal to broad audiences, but millions of niche players will nibble away at their readers and viewers. When you can reach the whole world via blogging and audio/video podcasting, even very narrow niches can have sizeable audiences if the content is good. Think of it in terms of millions of micro-channels focused on narrow topics.
Web sites like my own UtahPolicy.com need to be thinking through the ramifications of this, or be left behind. I should stop thinking of Utah Policy Daily as simply a political newsletter. That’s too constricting. I should think of it as Utah’s political channel, aggregating and producing political content of all kinds, including audio, video and text. Similarly, an interest group or campaign Web site ought to be viewed as a multi-media micro-channel delivering its messages using all forms of communications.
Using simple equipment, every Web site can become a combination of a newspaper, radio station and TV channel. Since I don’t have a lot of expertise in audio and video, it would make sense for me to partner with podcasters, radio stations and television stations to use their audio and video expertise, or at least link to their audio and video political coverage, since UPD is first and foremost an aggregator of all things political.
This is the world we’re quickly entering. And the pace of change is only going to accelerate.
Blog Watch
The bloggers over at New West say that S.L. Mayor Rocky Anderson's environmental legacy -- which gets him into trouble at home but wins him praise from progressives outside of Utah -- is being further burnished with his new proposal to require that building projects larger than 10,000 square feet that seek funding from Salt Lake City must be designed to meet energy and water efficiency standards and use green construction materials.
Washington Watch
Hatch Pushes Airport
Sen. Orrin Hatch tried to give St. George’s new airport an assist Wednesday by bringing together FAA and St. George officials to encourage approval of the environmental impact study (EIS), which has stalled construction for four years. “We have got to get this done. Delays have already cost the city millions and are threatening to force one of the airport’s largest carriers to cut its service,” said Hatch in a statement.
‘Feed America Thursday’
Representatives Chris Cannon, Rob Bishop, and Jim Matheson have teamed up to introduce legislation in the House that would designate the Thursday before Thanksgiving Day as "Feed America Thursday." Sen. Orrin Hatch has introduced a companion bill in the U.S. Senate. “The legislation calls for Americans to skip two meals on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, and to donate the money saved to feed America's hungry. Those who cannot or do not fast are also invited to contribute to local organizations feeding the hungry,” said Cannon in a press release.
Internet: Safe for Political Speech
Rep. Chris Cannon gave a speech on the House floor yesterday, lending his support to legislation that will exempt blogs, email and other online speech from campaign finance laws. “I'm here today to call for Congress to recognize the Internet as a safe harbor for political speech,” Cannon said. “Without Congressional action today, arbitrary restrictions would be imposed on blogs and other web content deterring participation from the very segment of our population that we want to encourage to be politically active.”
Campaign Tip
How to Walk a Neighborhood
Sponsored by Xi Corporation Utah's best source for political data solutions
(Reprinted from Exoro Campaign Collection)
The Basics: Walking neighborhoods is a valuable activity for candidates at all levels of politics. It’s a good way to get to know the people and the issues, to connect with real people instead of interacting only with politicos and opinion leaders. Walking neighborhoods is cheap and easy, but it is also a low-yield activity, in terms of total voter contacts made, compared with a lot of other campaign activities. However, by using a few tricks it can actually become a high-yield activity. The key is leveraging personal contacts into multiple non-personal contacts. It's important to start with a good walking list that has been developed based upon your campaign strategy (like whether you are targeting swing voters, your base supporters, etc.) It obviously makes sense to walk in neighborhoods with high turnout rates, not in neighborhoods where no one votes. Some candidates believe they can get non-voters to vote, and it’s usually not worth the effort. It’s a good idea to "household" your neighborhood walking list so you know which homes have multiple voters. As you meet people, be ready to discuss why you're running, issues of importance to the neighborhood, and be sure to ask if they have questions or advice. Leave behind a nice brochure. And ask for their vote. Tell them you need their support and ask for their vote.
You can leverage time spent walking in a couple of ways. Send campaign workers out ahead of the candidate to knock on doors, while the candidate walks down the middle of the street. The campaign workers bring people out to meet the candidate. No one will be home at lots of doors, and by using this technique the candidate meets a lot more people and you get through a neighborhood faster.
Getting Sophisticated: Here's how to really leverage walking neighborhoods: A day or two before you hit a neighborhood, drop or mail a letter to the active voters in that neighborhood, letting them know you'll be on their street on a specified date. Tell them you look forward to meeting them and mention a couple of issues important to you and them. After you walk the neighborhood, send another letter to the same group telling them you were in their neighborhood, mention some names of people you met, mention some issues you heard about, and ask for their vote. Even though you probably only actually met a relatively few people in your evening of walking, by sending the letters you will have touched, twice, every active voter in the area and they will feel you know them and their issues and will appreciate your effort to visit their neighborhood. That is personal campaigning at its best, leveraged to impact more voters, and it really works.
On a larger scale, even congressional and gubernatorial candidates can do some walking and leverage it effectively, particularly in rural Utah . In 1992, when I ran Mike Leavitt's first gubernatorial campaign, we would send him to rural towns and have him walk a few neighborhoods. We would arrange an interview in advance with the local radio station, and Leavitt would talk to the disc jockey or radio personality while he was walking, using one of those first-generation "brick" cell phones. Leavitt would say, "I'm here on the corner of Main and 1 st South. Just met with so-and-so (the local barber or hardware store owner), and he told me you really need some water developed around here (or whatever the local issues are). I'm going to meet with Mayor so-and-so and your county commissioners in a little while and we're going to get some things fixed." The radio stations would play the interview several times that day, leveraging a one-hour stop in a rural town into a major event, leaving everyone in the county knowing that Leavitt was in town. They felt like he knew them, their issues, and cared about them. |
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