How twitter influences politics: 1st Live TV Presidential Debate in Argentina.

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A presidential debate is a big event in a country, especially when it is the country’s first. With social media growing daily and people being eager to participate, twitter becomes everyone’s best friend.

The past Sunday on the 15th of November, #ArgentinaDebate was a worldwide trend topic the whole day long. The reason for this hashtag was because Argentina was holding the first presidential live debate on TV between the two remaining candidates. With this situation being a new phenomenon and social media being a huge part of politics today, everyone was anticipating and commenting on twitter.

Before the debate started, candidates Scioli and Macri asked their followers to support them by using hashtags with their names in favor of their potencial victory:

“I want to ask you that during the debate you support me in social media with #ScioliToWin and #ArgentinaDebate”
“15 minutes to go. During the debate we all tweet #MacriPresident. We are in this change together”

 

But it was during the debate that things got interesting. Second by second, everyone was alert and answering through the media. Reaching 100 million mentions, Infobae showed how many times those hashtags were used all over the country throughout the day.

Without the time limits that the debate gave the candidates, people in their parties were able to tweet along them. They still had a limited space of 140 characters but that did not stop them. Their official twitters highlighted the best phrases that were being said during the debate.

(We have to support, claim, pay teachers well. We have to give them back the prestige they deserve. #MacriPresident @ArgentinaDebate)

(I have the moral responsibility of defending my worker companions #ArgentinaDebate)

The most important newspapers of the country were not left outside of the conversation. They were constantly updating with quotes and asking followers about who they thought was winning or standing out in the debate, like shown in some examples:

“For you, who do you think stood out more in the debate?”
“#ArgentinaDebate Who do you think had the best performance during the presidential debate? #PresidentialDebate”

 

However, it was not all about the political serious side. The newspapers were also interested in showing the more mundane part, just like taking into account what celebrities were saying about the debate, on twitter as well:

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“#PresidentialDebate What celebrities said #ArgentinianDebate”

Or commenting on what twitter users were doing for fun during this tense moments, such as when candidate Macri kissed his wife and candidate Scioli happened to be watching:

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“The memes of the photo that unleashed madness in Twitter”

This was one of the memes that the regular twitter users started picking up and giving the debate a less serious note. However, there still were constant angry and constructive comments from the Argentinian population as well as some outside watchers.

In the end, Twitter is a tool that helps everyone participate and keep in touch with what is going on. Even the most mundane comments added up to the popularity of the debate and proved one more time how important the public image is for politics.

No one has the real answer of who won the debate, but what was is important is that everyone felt like they took part in this decision of the future of the country.

 

References:

  1. La Nación (Argentinian newspaper) www.lanacion.com.ar and https://twitter.com/LANACION
  2.  Clarín (Argentinian newspaper) http://www.clarin.com/ and https://twitter.com/clarincom
  3. Mauricio Macri’s Official Twitter https://twitter.com/mauriciomacri
  4. Daniel Scioli’s Official Twitter https://twitter.com/danielscioli
  5. “El minuto a minuto de las elecciones en twitter”- October 26th 2015 – by Infobae.com  http://www.infobae.com/2015/10/26/1765123-el-minuto-minuto-las-elecciones-twitter

Vlogging is not new: The art behind Youtube

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Some people may have heard about “vlogging“, that comes from the words “video” and “blogging”. Some may have no idea what it is. Some people have that as a job.

With YouTube as it’s main platform, content creators have found a way of expressing themselves through showing their lives publicly on the internet in video form. It would be impossible to point out who was the first person to post a vlog of their day on YouTube, but nowadays there are many examples of different types and qualities.

As mentioned before, some can proudly say they have made this their major income. For example Zoe Sugg, aka “Zoella“, who is a lifestyle and beauty YouTuber. She has over 9 million subscriber on her main YouTube channel where she posts one video a week. However, she does not stop there, as she occasionally posts vlogs on her second channel and every year does “Vlogmas” which is vlogging every day of December till Christmas, a very well known tradition among YouTubers. Her vlogs can be up to 30 minutes and her viewers gladly watch her going around her normal life.

A very different example is Louis Cole, aka “FunForLouis“, who is strictly a daily vlogger with 1.6 million subscribers. He records his life of adventures literally around the world. You never know where he will be next, and he never ceases to post a video daily whatever the circumstances.

Louis has a very good quality in image and content, but when it comes to originality and cinematography, Casey Neistat takes the lead. Casey makes his days look unique by the way he films them. He explained in one of his videos that he was having a successful  career as a cinematographer, having won awards and achieving a good living status. However, he decided to dedicate himself to YouTube because this way he is in charge of his own content and feels forced to keep being creative. He disagrees with the “mainstream” concept of TV and cinema being successful, and YouTube being just a stepping stone.

Humans have a need to document life, save it somehow from passing time. The personal journals and written blogs online have been around for a long time. Seen from that perspective, it makes sense that people with an inclination to photography and video would be more appealed by the vlog form with such easy access to new technologies.

This form of expression for some people comes across as self-centered, who would want to see someone elses’ regular life? But humans are also very curious and want to relate to others. Even if that is not a good reason, why not thing of vlogs as art?

Vlogging must be very related to the new technologies, specially how easy it is to grab the camera of your phone and simply upload it on a free platform. However, it is definitely not new. Jonas Mekas is 92 year old experimental cinematographer that even at his age,

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Jonas Mekas

still shoots films. Believe it or not, he could be considered the father of vlogging. Even though he does not use YouTube, he does upload his own vlogs on Vimeo and his official webpage where he welcomes people to watch. He has accepted the new technologies and adapted his work for the internet to keep developing as an artist, but still keeps parts of his aesthetic.

 

In one of his films,”Walden” (1969), he came up with the concept of a diary in video form. The secondary name for it, “Diaries, notes and sketches” is the essence of what his movie is. It is the film form of what a written diary would look like. It is a raw and personal exploration of Jonas Mekas’ life, edited in the way he wanted them to be seen.The film consists of random clips he shot during a couple of years of his life. His reactions to things, his friends and family and then just put the together in a chronological order. For the viewer it is like looking at someone’s intimate moments from an angle never seen before. For the creator, it is a compilation of memories and reactions that have a lot of meaning by themselves. Put together it gives away a little bit of the essence of the person and get turned into art.

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-Still image from “Walden”

Jonas Mekas chooses random moments in his life that don’t seem to have individual value and gives them meaning.

In a wedding scene from “Walden”, Jonas Mekas says a phrase that sums up his perspective in diary films:

“I make home movies, therefore I live. I live, therefore I make home movies.”

The way “Walden” is shot and edited is an example of this fascination we have with realism and immortality. Jonas Mekas takes advantage of that to keep a personal visual essay of his life.

This type of videos go against all the commercial movies that invade the market, only focused on making money. The way Jonas Mekas sees life and films it, makes it an art. It is like poetry in film form.

As an aspiring cinematographer and editor, I myself jumped into this crazy experiment. My goal was to push myself and create content every day while showing my live as an exchange student from Argentina in San Francisco.

It turns out this is a lot of work but also very rewarding. I may not have millions of subscribers, but with the 5.000 I have, I get warm comments from followers that enjoy my journey. It is an experience that makes me grow professionally and personally, as well as allowing me to express myself and share it with people that can relate to me.

Just like with everything in this world, nothing can please everyone. It is unknown if today’s YouTube vloggers ever got inspired by Jonas Mekas, but knowing it’s more artistic and cinematographic beginnings can put vloggers into a different perspective.

Sources:

Our “problems” are not as new as we thought

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Writing on the wall: Social media, the first 2000 years (book cover)

With the rapid development of technologies, we feel like we are struggling to catch up and that everything is changing. We complain about the future generations growing up differently than us and how bad that could be. It’s easy to blame it on the new things because we don’t want to take responsibility. But if we look back, this generation is not the first one to think this.  

Tom Standage is a journalist and author from England that wrote a book called “Writing on the wall: Social media, the first 2.000 years” in which he talks about the history of media through the lens of the telegraph, bringing up to conversation that social media is not exactly new. He goes back in time and shows all similarities between human’s past communication ways and social media today. What comes to conclusion is that the way humans communicate may be slightly changed by technology but the roots are still the same. We have the same instincts and the same drive when it comes to networking and showing off knowledge or possessions.

For example, something “going viral” seems to be a very recent term that can only happen with the globalization of internet. We’ve seen videos of cats, cute kids, emotional speeches and many more videos and photos that have had their 15 minutes of fame. But what if going viral wasn’t strictly related to these new technologies? It could be said that Martin Luther King’s 95 theses was the first viral phenomenon ever and he did it without the internet. Now achieving that is easier and we should take advantage of it, also taking into account how important it is to protect it’s freedom and worldwide access.

For the hopeless pessimists about the future

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Coffee Houses in the 17th Century in England

In his book, Tom Standage also explains how back in the 17th century in England, it was popular to gather in Coffee Houses to chat and find out about the news. It was a place where everyone was admitted and you couldn’t refuse to talk to anyone. Young people spent most their time there socializing and exchanging ideas, and that was seen as a bad thing by elders. Professors would complain those meetings in Coffee Houses were going to be the end of the British Empire, but quite the opposite happened. Those gatherings gave them the opportunity to meet new people and exchange opinions and creative ideas.

If we pay attention, this is exactly what is happening nowadays. People “wasting” their time chatting in Coffee Houses is the equivalent of people on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr (and so on) today. parent_child_mobile_main_article_1_1394695449_540x540

People today have the same type of thoughts about younger generations, how we are a lost cause because of the internet and the immediacy of things. Why can’t we see the internet and social media as a place to learn more about each other? As long as it is not abused,we could be facing the most open and creative generations ever, why try to stop them? We should learn from history and keep going forward instead of constantly looking at the possible bad side of things.

References

  1. Triangulation 126 Podcast hosted by Tom Standage – Oct 30th 2013 – https://twit.tv/shows/triangulation/episodes/126
  2. How Luther went viral – The economist – December 17th 2011 – http://www.economist.com/node/21541719
  3. “Net effects: The past, present and future impact in our networks” by Tom Wheeler – https://archive.org/details/NETEFFECTSThePastPresentAndFutureImpactOfOurNetworks