The LinkTV people, who really know what they are doing, have succeeded in merging DIY video, online community, the electoral process, and the public sphere. Check out Thepeoplechoose.org, where citizens contribute their own video to document, advocate, critique, argue and persuade other citizens — rather than passively sucking down the huge amounts of broadcast propaganda, they are actively making their own:

The mission of The People Choose 2006 is to “democratize” the 2006 midterm Congressional and Senate elections—to let American citizens help shape the nation’s election coverage and give them access to factual information about elections that includes the priorities of voters. The People Choose 2006 will enable anyone anywhere to upload videos and information about the campaigns in their Congressional district or state to a dynamic, map-based index open to the public. The videos may be included in programs broadcast nationwide on Link TV. The result is election information from the point of view of the citizens—not corporations, campaigns or political parties. We hope to change the way the media cover elections in the U.S. by giving citizens a role in that coverage. By building a national online community whose members can see one another’s needs and priorities, we seek to move Americans away from the politics of attack and narrow issues.

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