Wired News’ Andrew Curry has this interesting piece that highlights how advanced Germany is when it comes to using videocasting or Internet video to promote its political parties’ agendas or to gain exposure for its politicians. German Chancellor Angela Merkel puts out a weekly video podcast in which she holds forth on key topics.
Although Merkel has apparently been the butt of jokes due to what is characterized as her stiff style of delivery, she is nonetheless setting the agenda and reaching the press, party officials and others with no filtering by the media.
“It’s information straight from the chancellor, unfiltered by the media,” says Uwe Spindeldreier, head of the government’s press and information office.
And people are watching. Merkel’s videos are downloaded 200,000 times a week.
Moreover, the videocasts are light years ahead of what President Bush produces, or as Curry puts it, the executive branch in the U.S. “is still stuck in the golden age of weekly radio addresses,” although the administration has recently taken to putting out podcasts of those talks.
Germany’s Merkel has also prompted her party’s rivals to put out their own videos, with dark consequences in the case of the country’s far-right, neo-Nazi NPD party, which is not technically legal. The NPD put out its own videocasts on YouTube, but the site removed them within days. Now the NPD plans to begin streaming directly from its own web sites, although German law permits government censorship of content that promotes Nazi philosophies.
Cynthia Brumfield at 9:34 AM|Comments(0)
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