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View Full Version : Technology Pushing Political Films to Forefront


Suhit Gupta
12-01-2005, 10:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/11/23/digital.documentary.ap/index.html' target='_blank'>http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/11/23/digital.documentary.ap/index.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Got a political perspective? Grab a camera and make a statement. With today's technology, we can all be part of a new cinematic dialogue. When Robert Greenwald made a movie to show how Wal-Mart shortchanges its employees, Ron Galloway whipped together his own response, about how Wal-Mart workers love the mega-chain. Both debuted in mid-November. By the time Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" hit video stores in October, 2004, three rebuttals were competing for shelf space. Through the use of digital technology and Internet distribution it is now easier than ever for filmmakers to push their points of view. Movies can be made quickly and cheaply, then burned onto DVDs and disseminated worldwide on the Web."</i><br /><br />It is all very true. We have all discussed how cheap video cameras are, and how easy it is to encode videos and share them on the web or to burn DVDs after having editing your videos with semi-professional tools. So the cynic in me is simply thinking - hmm, is it me or is this article simply pointing out that the web, coupled with digital media technologies, has created a greater audience of consumers and has allowed more common people direct access to this consumer base? But of course, haven't we already known this for some time now?

Felix Torres
12-02-2005, 12:27 AM
What was that old saying?
"Freedom of the press belongs to those that own one?"

Not anymore.
Yes, it is old news to techies that these things are possible.
But it is new enough to the non-tech masses.
And, there is a difference between something being possible and something being *done*. :-)
Or being used for a purpose, political or otherwise.

Think of it as a sign of the mainstreaming of digital media tech that it is being enlisted into the political persuasion toolkit along such mainstays as direct mailings, push-polls, and the old reliable: lawn signs. ;-)

Some might argue that TV didn't become a true mainstream medium until the Nixon-Kennedy debate in 1960...