Just as the first televised debate, the famed 1960 match between Kennedy and Nixon, revolutionized the campaign process by putting candidates on display in millions of American homes, YouTube is once again redefining the role of democracy. The video-sharing website receives in excess of 100 million hits per day, most of which are probably spent watching movie trailers, skateboarding dogs and overweight guys rocking out to Numa Numa. Over the past few weeks, however, the site has transformed into a public policy forum for thousands of viewers' questions, some of which were posed to Democratic presidential candidates in last Monday's debate. A CNN panel, which included David Bohrman, the network's senior vice president and Washington Bureau chief, and Anderson Cooper, the event's moderator, selected 39 out of approximately 3000 potential videos for the debate.
Because it reached out to young voters and because it asked some questions unlikely to be seen in a normal debate, the most recent candidate match-up was an improvement. However, the new approach could be further improved if the video selection process were more democratic.
According to CNN, 2,622,000 viewers tuned in to Monday night's debate. Though this is not a record -- the June 3 debate had 2,783,000 spectators -- the demographic breakdown of the YouTube debate's viewership was remarkable. The debate attracted the highest number of viewers between the ages of 19 and 34 since 1992, when televised debate ratings were first measured.
Targeting this age group is crucial to increasing civic engagement in America. In the 2004 presidential election, youth voter turnout was dismal. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 41.9 percent of 18- to 24-year olds and 46.9 percent of 25- to 34-year olds participated, as compared to 58.3 percent of the general population. Even numbers this low were a slight increase from previous years!
Although it remains to be seen whether the high ratings of the debate will translate into a much-needed increase in youth turnout, the novel approach is promising. In its guide to mobilizing young voters, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement suggests that "the medium matters more than the message" and encourages the use of "technologies that young people use like text [messaging] and the internet, but only in ways that allow them to opt in to the dialogue." By giving the chance to pose a question directly to the candidate via the popular website, the debate accomplished just that.
The video questions were also more daring than what would be asked in a usual debate. Some were highly personal, either revealing the askers' private lives -- two women wondered if the presidential hopefuls would allow them to marry each other -- or prying into the candidates' privateness, asking them whether they have talked to their children about sex education. Yet other videos were less than politically correct, such as the one asking Hillary Clinton if she thinks she, as a woman, would be taken seriously by an Arab state. In the words of Nathan Empsall '09: "Could you imagine someone from CNN asking that? The pundits would jump all over them. But you can't jump on YouTube users!"
But despite the innovation's advantages, there remains much room for improvement, particularly regarding the question selection process. One of CNN's taglines to the viewers was that "candidates for president will face your questions. No journalists. No panelists. No filters." Unfortunately, this was not entirely true. Moderator Anderson Cooper played a key role in directing the debate. Moreover, even though Bohrman told The New York Times that "this is the most democratic of all possible structures," he at the same time supported the network's "gatekeeper function" and thought the idea of YouTube viewers voting to select the videos is "dangerous." In the case of a democratic election, calling democracy dangerous is, to say the least, ironic.
Although giving online voters complete control over video questions could be problematic for the future of the experiment, a stronger element of popular input in question selection does need to be implemented. However, it is unlikely that this will happen by September 17, when the Republican YouTube debate is scheduled to air.
Nevertheless, if you always really wanted to ask Mitt Romney about his deceased dog Seamus (whom Romney allegedly put in its kennel and then strapped to the roof of his car for 12 hours), you should submit a video to YouTube. If Anderson Cooper approves, you might even get an answer.
