The role of bloggers in the US democracy

Representatives blogerskogo community ahead of Journalists in a statement of scandalous news about the US elections and candidates for senior positions

Moscow. September 3. INTERFAX.RU - Since Hurricane Gustav has lost its destructive power, the Congress Republicans in St. Paul finally transformed from a charity event into a political show. On Wednesday, September 3, the first scheduled performance of John McCain and candidate for US vice presidential Sarah Palin. In the evening on September 4 is expected to McCain will make a keynote speech. With a special look of upcoming events expect bloggers who have become perpetrators of two major scandals of the Congress. It first appeared on the Internet details of Palin's family life, as well as careless statement by one of the supporters of Obama, saying that "this hurricane proves that God seems to be on the side of the democrats».

The effect of the presence of

Bloggers first appeared in the pre-election congress of both parties in 1996. Four years ago, Republicans accredited to your convention tyszx about 10 journalists and 12 bloggers all. In 2008, the picture changed dramatically. Along with thousands of employees of traditional media came to cover the work of the Congress around 300 authors to post information on their own and specialized Internet sites. The same trend was observed at the recent Democratic convention in Denver: no accident the main sponsor of the press center for bloggers - so-called "big tent" - made Google. For $ 100 each author, including the delegates and guests of the congress, could gain access to the system of processing and data transmission in real time, including written texts, photographs, and video and audio files. Google also provides the bloggers and the Republican convention in St. Paul.

"Bloggers in this year's particularly large. They reserved a special section in the sports complex Xcel Energy, where the convention "- confirms a spokesman for his political show Joanna Burgos. According to her, the presence of bloggers "expands our ability to communicate directly with voters." "This year, all efforts that people back home, create a sense of presence and participation in the Congress," - she said. Opinion Burgos support prominent American media technologies. According to them, now the ordinary voter can get much more information about key electoral events than 4 years ago. "If in 2004 you did not appeared before the TV during the broadcast of the speech of John Kerry or George Bush, the then you have virtually no chance to hear it completely. Now, thanks to YouTube and other services, such problems do not have ", - experts say. By the way, Google has not failed to take advantage of pre-election congresses of parties to demonstrate new features YouTube, associated with speech recognition. After asking in a search engine portal, certain terms, such as "unemployment", "Russia", "Taxes", the voters will be able to listen to is that part of the speaker's speech, in which they are mentioned.

The other side of the coin

The downside of the presence of bloggers on political activities have become increasingly frequent scandals related to personal life and careless statements of both the candidates and their supporters and families. It turned out that the camera sees the mobile phone is much more than the lens of professional cameraman. A blogger ears hear better than the microphones and tape recorders official media. That bloggers fanned scandal surrounding family life Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain invited you to participate in the election as vice-president. After the Internet began to exaggerate rumors that Palin's youngest son - Trigg - in fact not born to her and her daughter, the governor was forced to make a statement in reply, which recognizes that the daughter may not be the mother of 4 x month baby just because of their own pregnancy. Of course, this news has not added tandem McCain-Palin popularity in religious and conservative circles of America, for which they had hoped. According to the most recent CBS News poll Roll, in the wake of the intensifying in Saint Paul scandal Barack Obama re-took the lead in the presidential race: for it are ready to vote 48% of voters, while for the Republican candidate - 40%.

Another success was the bloggers phrase uttered by one of the prominent supporters of Obama. "This hurricane proves that God seems to be on the side of the Democrats," - he said in a conversation with a friend, not knowing what they overheard. Quote spread on the Internet, and Democrats had to apologize for his words, but many bloggers agree - is a higher power put obstacles in the way of John McCain in the White House.

In addition, thanks to the Internet bloggers appeared plenty of wide range of information as well as photos and videos from the protest action which staged a September 1 in St. Paul opponents continuation of the military campaign in Iraq. On the streets of the city came to a total of 10 thousand people; they set fire to garbage cans, hit the shop windows, threw bottles at passing buses. The police traditionally respond to them with tear gas and smoke bombs.

/ Interfax, Alice Chudakov /