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 If the 1960 US presidential race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon is remembered as the first one to be decided by television, the present one is being shaped by the internet.

Those who heard the final debate between the two on radio had thought that Nixon had won it. Those who saw it on TV thought otherwise and Kennedy won a razor thin victory.

Although the web has been a popular medium for nearly a decade, it has now matured into a political force. Nothing illustrates the new power of the Internet better than the YouTube website, where thousands of videos are uploaded everyday and accessed around the world.

The interactive use of video clips on the YouTube has dramatically changed how political issues pan out in these elections. It has helped and hurt political campaigns in new ways.

The significant speech on race by Senator Barack Obama last month was broadcast live on TV; but its length and subtlety meant its immediate impact was rather limited. But the full 38-minute speech has already been watched 4 million times on the YouTube since the first broadcast.

However, the web cuts both ways. The clip showing Obama’s Pastor Jeremiah Wright condemning America, first put out by the conservative Fox TV, hurt the Senator’s campaign and forced him to address the race issue head on.

The Republican nominee, Senator John McCain too has been at the receiving end. His attempted at humour earlier on in the campaign with a song on bombing Iran has come back to haunt him on the YouTube. Opponents of McCain for example have spliced his bomb Iran clip with segments from the 1960s film on nuclear war, ‘Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.’

In the past, a candidate’s gaffe or a flip flop on a major issue would not last more than a day on the TV. Today, it survives much longer on the internet. Anything a candidate says can be turned against him quickly and in more imaginative ways.

Web of money

The web has become an important channel for fund raising for the candidates and a venue for a host of other political and commercial entrepreneurs.

You could now use the web to make money and/or score a political point. Companies specialising on making video clips and advertisements for the web are already thriving. The emphasis is on making incisive clips that put out a sharp message. These firms are also on the lookout for interesting uploads from individuals who might just be working out of home.

Some of these videos ask the viewers to sign on to attached political petitions. ‘MoveOn.Org’, a liberal group and ‘Brave New Films’, an internet video company tied up to produce a montage of the Fox TV’s hostile coverage of Obama. This was presented with a petition to other news outlets to reject Fox’s smear campaign against Obama.

Thanks to the web, mainstream media outlets can no longer take their audiences for granted. Their many hidden biases are easily questioned and challenged. Many blogs now regularly break political stories and compel the traditional print and TV media to follow suit. As a result all the presidential campaigns this year closely follow the political chatter on the blogs and political websites.

Citizen reporters

In the past, citizens were passive consumers of news and political arguments selected by reporters and editors. If they did not like what they read, heard or saw, they could do no more than chatter about it with their friends and family. Now, they can go on the web and raise the temperature.

By generating unprecedented access to information, that was once available only to journalists, the web has opened the door for an intensive public participation in the political discourse. Anyone can now read up original government reports, examine the past records of candidates, and compare the positions of different formations.

The establishments in democracies can no longer hope to shape the popular debate or limit it by effective interventions in the mainstream media. They will have to find new ways to cope with the emergence of the web as an expansive source of political information and discourse.

The writer is a Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore iscrmohan@ntu.edu.sg