A Fresh Brand of Newspeak?

An old post that I'm just getting around to putting up. No, I'm not on an Orwell kick, although he is one of my favorites . . .


Floating about on the Internet right now is an anti-Hilary Clinton piece, a mash-up of the groundbreaking Apple Computer 1984 commerical.

It's very well edited and quite effective. The message concludes with a BarackObama.com tagline.

Here's a link.

Not surprisingly, the Obama camp is denying any connection.

Which begs the question, how has the Internet affected one's ability, especially a political candidate's ability, to speak with anonymity?

The tactic is far from contemporary. One of our country's earliest leaders, Thomas Jefferson, used press sources to slander John Adams in his bid for the presidency.

But by making it possible for the message to reach diverse and distant groups, anonymously, with lightning speed, the Internet is a weapon of much greater potency than a newspaper, television show or underground leaflet.

Think about it. Here are just a few Internet methods:

Internet news

Message boards

Instant messaging

MySpace

Blogs

RSS Newsfeeds

YouTube

Facebook

Podcasts

Camera phones

Spam

Webcasts

Streaming audio & video

Web-based games

Online communities

Commercials

All can be employed with a relative sense of anonymity, or at minimum can decieve the viewer regarding the true source of the material. Certainly these tactics can benefit one party directly or indirectly while at the same time preserving a candidate's ability to distance themselves from the message.

And, unlike a leaflet or letter, which one person must physically pass to another, an email or link can be forwarded by one person to hundereds of others with great ease.

Unlike a television news program, which is viewed traditionally only one time, Internet news programs and videos are preserved for as long as there's an interest in them.

Unlike a newspaper, which is read and thrown away, Internet news remains available for greater periods of time.

Unlike traditional media sources which are published daily or three times per day, Internet content can be revised nearly instantly. Got a leak to the press? You can bet that anonymous breaking news will be distributed via the world wide web.

Perhaps the 1984 piece was created by an anti-Obama camp, maybe even one loosely connected to Hilary Clinton. After all, anonymity works both ways. Could Clinton have created it to cast Obama in a poor light? It's possible.

So, a messaging cloak can both harm and help political candidates.

And as a concealer and message distribution system, nothing today works better than the Internet.