|
Oct 01,
2007 01:28 PM
thestar.com
staff
The rise of Internet video-sharing sites like YouTube have opened new
opportunities for parties, interest groups and citizens alike to try to get
their point across - or ambush their opponents.
The relative anonymity of the Internet can make it difficult to pin down who
is who, making the online campaign the place for partisan shenanigans and
negative campaigning - so you have to take much of what’s out there with a grain
of salt. Some are nasty, brutish and short; others are slick, well-produced and
surprisingly thoughtful. Most don’t get a lot of eyeballs.
We’ve tried to skim some of the more interesting bits from this "YouTube
campaign" below. The views expressed are not ours and we present these links
without vouching for the originator’s true identities. We’ll add to this list
over the final days of the campaign.
Issues
The Ontario Autism
Coalition has posted 15 videos on the issue of funding for autism treatment
in Ontario, including snippets from the leaders TV debate, the candidates
answering questions about the issue, footage from the Ontario Autism Coalition
Day of Action on Sept. 15 - and a digitally-modified version of Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick
Blues video that makes a pointed case for more autism treatment funding.
Moment of YOUth (www.momentofyouth.org), a
group that purports to explain the Canadian political process to young people,
has posted a series of videos reminiscent of Rick Mercer’s walking rants,
including clips on poverty and minimum
wage.
Electoral Reform Referendum and
MMP
Someone going by the handle simpleMMP has posted a decidedly
pro-MMP video called "Understand MMP in 2 Minutes." It’s actually 1 minute and 51
seconds, features good graphics and has a great soundtrack. Nicely done.
A 22-year-old student with the moniker BeachofDreams presents the case for
MMP in a Norman-McLaren-meets-Soviet-propaganda animated video.
A
Hamilton-based group called the Women and Minorities Project has posted several
videos from an Electoral Reform Information Forum it held on Sept. 8, which
addressed such questions as: How minorities can benefit from MMP and Does MMP
provide better representation?
A user named VoteforMMPvideos posts several clips
of experts, including Conservative Sen. Hugh Segal, speaking in favour of
MMP at a forum in Kingston, Ont.
At an all-candidates meeting local candidates from the NDP, Communist, Family
Coalition, Conservative, Green and Liberal parties answer the question: Where do you and
your party stand on MMP?
And York U. prof. Dennis Raphael chooses his backyard chair as platform from
which to talk
about Proportional Representation in Ontario Elections.
Even Elections Ontario, the non-partisan agency tasked with making Ontarians
aware that there is a referendum on Oct. 10 and what it means, gets in on the
YouTube act, posting its cheeky TV ads as well as a 4-minute explainer
video.
And the Ontario Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform, a citizen’s group
appointed by the Ontario Legislature to study Ontario’s electoral system and
which ultimately recommended a new mixed-member proportional system, explains
itself here.
Parties
The smaller political parties can’t afford to
run TV ads - but it doesn’t mean they can’t good ones, like this Green Party
ad.
The Freedom Party of Ontario has posted 47 videos by last
count, many of party leader Paul McKeever’s appearances across the
province.
The Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) has posted videos by four
of their candidates.
The videos for individuals can get pretty slick,
like this
video for Dwight Duncan’s campaign, which features the Fatboy Slim song
"Praise You" (wonder if they paid the royalties?).
We don’t know what to
make of this, the Ontario Young Liberals of the James Bay Region’s "What’s Sexy to
You?"
The partisans
YouTube is something of
the wild west of politics, since anyone can hoist a camera or edit some video
and upload it for the world to see. And sometimes, they do, like this video shot
by someone later revealed to be a Liberal supporter catching John Tory’s
now-infamous "U of Zero" remark.
This guy, going by the handle
ToryTube, is dogging PC Leader John Tory on the campaign trail and posting the
results.
26-year-old Leslie Coulter is doing the same to Dalton
McGuinty.
"Rupertrich" critiques the McGuinty government record with
three well-edited
video "report cards," with archive footage and some good interviews with
activists and journalists.
User premierpinnochio edits a press
conference by Premier Dalton McGuinty (photo at left) to add a laugh track
and inter-titles to make his or her partisan point on crime - one that hews very
closely to official Progressive Conservative attack ads.
|
