This has to be seen to be believed, the coolest animation ever. A little weird but its amazing how much time had to have been put into making this …
The new short film by Blu an ambiguous animation painted on public walls. Made in Buenos Aires and in Baden.
blublu.org/
blublu.org/sito/video/muto.htm
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.music by Andrea Martignoni
produced by Mercurio Film
assistant: Sibe
Now, more then ever the Internet has become a major influence on politics in the United States. With young voters playing a major role in the 2008 presidential election, candidates are extending their campaigns onto popular “social networking” sites like YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace. Although political candidates have found that using the Internet can help promote themselves and their campaign, many have been hurt by the spreading of false information about them or their stances on political and personal issues by other Internet users.
One of the ways the Internet has influenced politics is its use by voters for gathering information and news on candidates. One organization that has done much research on the influence of the Internet on politics is The Pew Research Center. The Pew Research Center is, according to them, “an independent opinion research group that studies attitudes toward the press, politics and public policy issues.” The Pew Research Center has found that around 24% of Americans polled said they regularly learn the latest news and updates on the 2008 presidential candidates online, a percentage that is almost double the amount of those polled in the 2004 presidential race. The age group that by far been the most influenced by the Internet and have been most eager to find information on candidates in the 2008 election on the Internet is the 18-29 year old age group. Research has shown that 42% of voters in the 18-29 age group have used the Internet to gather information on candidates and to follow their favorite candidate, more then any other form of media. Politicians now realize that getting the young vote involves extending their campaign onto the Web. The 2008 presidential candidates have done so by creating profiles on popular social networking websites such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, all of which have a large user base of 18-29 year olds. The most popular sources of campaign news on the Internet among all voters polled are MSNBC.com, CNN.com, and Yahoo News. Even though the Internet has been becoming more and more influential in politics, television is still the leading source for people to gather political news. But that lead is slipping. Nearly 60% of Americans still use television primarily to gather information on politicians and find out political news, down from 68% in 2004.
For politicians, and more specifically the 2008 presidential candidates, the Internet has been a great tool for them to reach out to voters and promote themselves. All of the 2008 presidential hopefuls have websites that help them push out their latest campaign news to anyone with Internet access that come to their site. Voters who support a certain candidate can sign up for newsletters that are sent through E-mail that allow the campaigns to update them about when candidates will be speaking in a location near them, through information they provided during the newsletter sign up process. Politicians are also using their websites to make it easier for voters to find their stances on various issues happening in the world and also to show website visitors how they are going to create solutions to the problems facing our country. The days of having to watch clips of smaller campaign speeches on TV and not being able to view the entire speech are no longer among us. Candidates now use online video sharing services like YouTube and Viddler to share their speeches that many times are not able to be aired in their entirety on television due to programming schedules. Candidates are also using online video sharing sites to share campaign commercials and small video clips that update viewers on a much more personal level on what they have been doing and their opinion on recent events without the time restrictions and effort involved with broadcasting on television.
The Internet has also made a major impact on how presidential candidates fundraise for their campaign. The candidate, considered by most, that has embraced the Web as part of their campaign trail is Senator Obama. Barack Obama has told the press that most of the donations that he has received to his campaign were from the internet and that much of the donations were $10, $20, and $30, while the average donation size was around $100. The $100 average for Senator Obama is much less then what candidates in the past have averaged, but because the Internet has enabled so many people to participate in giving donations of the size they choose Barack Obama has had a record amount of donations to his campaign. According to Yahoo News and many other news outlets that cover politics, Barack Obama is said to have received over $50 million dollars in donations in February 2008 alone.
Republican candidate Ron Paul has used the internet to make history when it comes to campaign fundraising. The Congressman and physician who has received less coverage by traditional media outlets then his other republican candidates, but much praise from the online community, received an enormous amount of donations in a one day “money bomb” that was organized by his campaign online. On December 16, 2007, Ron Paul’s campaign broke the one day donation record held by 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry of $5.7 million with over $6 million. At the time, John Kerry had much more exposure in the other forms of media then Ron Paul did in December 2007, yet because of the Internet, voters were able to find more information on him and were able to help support his campaign in what will go down in history for single day fundraising. With the Internet becoming a part of more peoples lives every year, it would not be wrong to say the possibility of Congressman Ron Paul’s record being broken in the next presidential election in 2012 is possible, if not highly likely.
With the Internet being a great way for voters and candidates to communicate with each other and for people to form online communities around the candidate of their choice, the Internet can be, and is, used as a tool for people to spread lies about candidates that are considered opponents to the Politian they support. Internet journalists, or more famously know as, bloggers, have been ridiculed by every other form of media including TV, radio, and print media, for being extremely biased and to be considered unprofessional because “bloggers” are able to post what ever they want freely on the Internet and use their blogs as a way of giving false information because there is no one that checks the credibility of the information they publish on there sites. While it is true that many blogs on the Internet do have their own agenda when it comes to the stories they write, there are creditable bloggers on the web. The only thing is, most of the political bloggers on the Internet work for companies that have part of their business in other media outlets, so it would almost make the credibility to bloggers irrelevant. Love them or hate them, as many politicians do, bloggers have a huge influence as a source of information and opinionated pieces in the media. The wide spread support for Ron Paul and Barack Obama by the tech industry and more importantly individual internet bloggers has a major part in the reason why each of the candidates has been so successful fundraising online.
The Internet is has also been used to spread information that Politians have been hiding from the public or have been trying to get he public to ignore. In recent years many politicians have been punished and sometimes have served serious jail time because of information that was leaked out on the internet about them. Whether or not exposing political candidates, specifically the candidates that may be running our country, is a good thing or not is up to each persons own opinion. The “defacing” and leaking of documents that show government and corporate misconduct has become very popular online and has even been the reason for many sites existence. The most popular site that is used by the online community to read leaked documents that expose politicians of their wrong doing is WikiLeaks.org. Visitors of WikiLeaks can read documents that have been posted by other people to the site. Do to the ability of people to post documents and their own free will, the credibility of the site is questionable, but is has been known for the leaking of real documents that have gotten many corporations and politicians in trouble. WikiLeaks also serves as a place for visitors to comment and share their opinion on leaked information posted on the Internet.
In closing, the internet has served as a very influential part of politics and the 2008 presidential campaign race. Although it has been used as a way for people to spread false information and rumors about certain candidates, it has also been used as a way of exposing politicians of their wrong doings. Voters are not the only ones that the Internet has benefited; it has also proved to be a great way for politicians running for office to promote their candidacy and to help raise donations for their campaign.
This is a great example of why you shouldn’t mess around with co-workers when they are on the phone!
