Matthew Bernius responds to my post, Hope is Presidential. He writes,

Aldon mentions Ask a Ninja, Hope is Emo, and Lonelygirl15 as YouTube exemplars. I’m not quite sure what the candidates can learn from these content creators, as they all are essentially “old media” examples in the new media space. All of these are professionally produced (read as scripted, acted, filmed, and edited by professionals).

I guess the first thing that jumped out at me was suggesting that Ask a Ninja or Hope is Emo are essentially “old media” examples in the new media space. What are the essential characteristics of new media or old media? Matthew seems to suggest that the issue is either the roll of professionals in the production, or the use of techniques like having a script, having good filming and having it edited.

Yet many of my video-blogging friends, or for that matter, friends that text-blog, all aspire to be paid for their work. Is there something about receiving money for one’s work that makes the work less valuable? Or, for that matter, what is wrong with having a good script, good camera shots, or good editing?

He goes on to ask “What is authenticity in this digital space?” and wonders if “it’s any different than authenticity in the so-called real world”. It is an important question to ask. My first reaction is that there probably isn’t a significant difference between authenticity in digital space then there is in the so-call real world. Does having a script make things less authentic? Was the “I have a dream speech” or the Gettysburg Address somehow less authentic because it was written out? I don’t think so.

Politicians are professional speakers. It would be foolish to expect them not to be professional speakers. Yes, we might not want a canned speech to every question we pose, but most people want a well thought out answer. Perhaps good political speaking, whether it is captured on video or not, is a bit like doing improv.

Yet I also feel that the comments about Ask a Ninja of miss the bigger picture. One of the essential characteristics of new media, to me, is the ability for anyone to do it. Anyone can put a video up on YouTube. If they have ‘professional’ skills, can write a decent script, use good camera shots, edit it, then the video is likely to get more widely viewed. Yet having professional skills isn’t necessarily correlated to being trained at a traditional school, or having a traditional job in the profession.

Getting more widely viewed gets to a second essential characteristic of new media; the viral nature of successful productions. That is where we can learn from Ask a Ninja and Hope is Emo. The professional qualities of Ninja and Emo contribute to them going viral, but it is the viral nature that matters.

Yes, talking about professional qualities may be part of the question, but the big question is, what makes a video, an idea, or a meme go viral? Why is it that Martin Luther King’s speech 44 years ago still inspires us to have dreams of a better country when so many political speeches of today inspire us to change channels?

Yes, I do have a dream, and part of it includes people using new media, no matter how professionally produced, to reach new audiences with a message of hope and inspiration dating back to the oldest of all media.

(Cross-posted at Greater Democracy)