Reading Assignment 7

In part three of Tapscott he discusses the net generation's past and potential manipulation and motivations when it comes to politics. Tapscott spends a long time focusing, not surprisingly, on 2008's recent election and how Obama was able to utilize the web generation primarily into becoming the voting force he so dearly needed to win. Tapscott goes on and on about this generation's ability to change the old ways of politics and how we are hoping to change the face of politics to better suit this generation's specific traits. A couple of these traits are things such as immediacy and the ability to really connect with a politician such as through online forum ventures of "jamming" (really, thats the name?). Anyways, one of the more interesting things that Tapscott brings up that this generation has always demanded of it's politicians more so than any other is a trust.

It seems like something any generation would be striving to get from their government. Trust is a key thing between he public and a politician, if you do not trust what they say they will do then why the hell are they in such a seat of power? When you think about it, this idea of trusting what the person says boils down to if you can remember fully what they said and if you can successfully make enough noise to raise attention to a politician not following his or her promises. If you follow this idea, that in the past the promises of key political figures were not always cataloged or made public enough to truly motivate us to act on them not being fulfilled, then it makes sense. Today there are several tv channels whose soul purpose is to display political speeches. There are several more stations who constantly analyze and repeat these happenings 24/7. Now take the power of the internet, where people can post and say damn near whatever they want (and they do, constantly), and you have a perfect mix of media's playing to the publics eyes and ears. All you need to do is hop online or turn on a tv or open a newspaper even and you will be bombarded with political news. What is so different today about this versus half a decade ago is that we can now so easily return to this information and check to see if promises are being followed up on. We can so easily comment and chat about things like this and send notices and alerts spreading any events we so choose. We can blog and post videos, we can even get in contact with political parties instantly through the web. This is certainly changing the way politics operates. A new age of transparency is necessary for politicians to garner public trust and good opinion that they so need with this generation.

i am not positive if this will last however. It seems to me that certain things to get done really do need to be hushed up. Of course I am not saying that we should not be filled in on key events, but take health care for example. The public option has been bogged down in some of the most ridiculous political squabbling I have personally lived through and the way that the media portrays this on the internet and tv and radio just serves to help bog down the issue. I am certainly not as passionate about a healthcare bill as I was and I think I can attribute a lot of that to being over stimulated by news about it.