Howard Dean, the Net.Art President

I'm actually very surprised that the net.art / activist community hasn't
talked more about Howard Dean's campaign. Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign
manager, talks like an internet artist when he talks. He talks about how the
structure of the campaign was designed to disseminate information in
concentric circles instead of hierarchies (his words) and then, through the
use of meetups and rallies, bring the concentric circles back in, with the
intention of disseminating the information back out with a greater
intensity.

Trippi has been very supportive of the blog community as a means to do this;
the Dean Blog is notable for listing blogs that are critical of Dean; it
allows open commenting (no registration or moderation) and refers to
comments on the blog to fine tune the campaign strategy. The blog community
has centered around Dean in return, and now there's an "adopt a journalist"
program where bloggers pick a reporter and analyze their writing for bias
and accuracy. While a lot of these blogs are Dean-centric, they are also
actual grass roots movements, and Dean has at least managed to disseminate
an idea of media criticism into the general election drive. A widespread new
media accountability for old media has gotten bloggers mentioned by the
ombudsmen at the New York Times and NPR.

That all of this is, ultimately, connected to a power play is somewhat
softened by Dean the candidate, who, in person, is a very bright, down to
earth individual who engages the issues in a complex and realistic manner.
Trippi was betting on the new media taking over the old, with information
dissemination playing a key part of the campaign. The problem is that TV
trumped him. Dean's television play is poor, Dean doesn't know how to behave
on television, and the media takes his complicated policy message and
distorts it, pinning Dean with an "angry" label when he defends himself.

People might dislike Howard Dean because of a media wash which has nothing
to do with the actual candidate. Trippi gambled that a big media assault
could be held off and repealed by a new media defense, and Iowa may have
proved him wrong. We'll see what happens. Regardless of what you think of
the candidate, the campaign is certainly a new media event, and I do wonder
why it hasn't been dissected more amongst the new mediites.

Is it not discussed because it's still unfashionable to be a Democrat?
(That's *soooo* Nader!) Or is it because new media artists have already
watched the new media collapse (fired curators and the like) and are
therefore more cynical to the idea that a political campaign would be any
different?

-e.


—– Original Message —–
From: "murphy" <[email protected]>
To: "thingist" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 8:39 PM
Subject: [thingist] A Consistent Pragmatist


> > Dean, who looks happiest when he has several cubic yards of body-space
> > to separate him from other people, is cool; the necessary fuzziness
> > and warmth are supplied by the campaign, by Trippi's "online populism"
> > at DeanforAmerica.com.
> >
> > The website, besides being a $10,000-an-hour moneymaking machine, is
> > an exceptionally lively virtual community - a beguiling combination of
> > noisy chatrooms, agitprop updated for the internet era, and a
> > networking-and-dating service. Skip the continuously changing official
> > blog, and the unofficial bloggers who hang out morning, noon and night
> > in the forums, and go to DeanLink, where you can plug in your postcode
> > and find every self-styled "Deaniac" in your immediate neighbourhood.
> > Some post their personal biographies, along with lonelyhearts-style
> > snapshots. (Yes, I've seen her in Thrift way . . .) Click on a name,
> > and up come two buttons: "Send a message to – " and "Add – to your
> > list of friends". It's hard to remember that this is politics not the
> > dating game. Then go to "Get Local", where the virtual spills into the
> > actual, and you can meet up with – in the flesh at a fund-raising
> > house party, a letter-writing and envelope-licking session at a bar or
> > cafe, a doorbelling expedition, a chilly hour spent waving Dean
> > placards at the passing traffic. You can still sign up to travel to
> > Iowa to get out the vote for the caucus there on Monday, or to New
> > Hampshire for the primary on Tuesday week. For anyone who happens not
> > to have a life, a busy, socially crowded, full-time one awaits at
> > DeanforAmerica.com.
> >
> > Trippi describes the campaign with a software metaphor: it is "open
> > source" rather than "proprietary", Linux as against Microsoft, in
> > which the individual user is free to adapt the campaign's considerable
> > resources to his or her own personal and local circumstances. It is,
> > so the website relentlessly iterates, "Your campaign", shaped and
> > driven by its nationwide community of members. Even the casual visitor
> > is liable to get infected by the air of urgency and excitement that
> > pervades the site. In America's present sullen climate, it's an
> > unseasonably warm and hopeful place to go.
>
>
>
> http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1124901,00.html
>
> murph
> offshore|online
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