The Cable Gamer has often thought to herself that the same "eyeballs" that watch a show could do more than just watch. They--or, more precisely, the people connected to those eyeballs--could take action. And why not? People have opinions, why not put them to work?
Of course, those eyeballs already are doing something: At least in theory, they are watching the ads and buying things. And of course, in a political season, eyeballers--especially those eyeballing cable news, which has taken the lead on political coverage--are also voters.
But these folks, waiting to be mobilized, could be doing more--more good. A heartwarming f'rinstance comes from TV Newser, which details the wonderful humanitarian efforts of "Fox & Friends":
The show is also being hailed for helping a young woman get the medical coverage she desperately needed.
19-year-old Caitlin White had extensive brain surgery (her brain was actually falling through the bottom of her skull) but her insurance company was not going to cover the $113,000 bill until FNC's Peter Johnson, Jr. got involved. Fox & Friends aired several segments on Caitlin's story, and Johnson went all the way to the top to help the Bartow, Florida teen, calling up Gov. Charlie Crist. Crist's call to Aetna was enough for the insurer to pick up the tab.
"If a call from the Governor's office can make a little bit of a difference to help someone like Caitlin, it's an honor to do that," Crist said yesterday during an appearance on F&F along with Caitlin and her mother.
That's a sweet story. And let's hope that there's more of that sort of wrong-righting "ombudsman"-type activity on TV. But in the meantime, TCG can't help but think that the same sort of activism will be found in more venues, especially as TV and the Net continue to converge.
And already, Convergence Visionaries have demonstrated that the political/policy impact of Net-based mobilization can be seismic. In May, Newt Gingrich launched his "Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less." petition drive, which was a sort of TV-Net hybrid, as Gingrich championed the idea across various media platforms. Newt's effort gained nearly a million-and-a-half signatures in just a few weeks, blowing away the Al Gore-type polar bear pieties, transforming the American political debate in just a couple of months.
And just this morning, there's an interesting item in The Washington Examiner, detailing Net-driven changes in the lobbying biz. Writer Bill Myers notes that the old clubby game of influence peddling has now been blown wide open:
The problem is that in the 21st century, it’s harder to have an absolute monopoly on information.
“The story of American society after the Internet is the story of the decreasing relevance of middlemen and institutions: People want to do for themselves,” said journalist Matt Bai, whose book, “The Argument,” was one of the first to spot the growing influence of netroots groups on Boggs’ Democratic party.
Indeed, the netroots groups are impatient with compromise and make no secret of their scorn for professional lobbyists.
And if that's bad news for lobbyists and other kinds of gatekeepers--including the MSM--fine! Although, of course, something tells TCG that Boggs & Co. will do just fine under any technological regime. Why? because human nature, including all its insider-y factors and foibles, will always matter a lot in politics.
But at the same time, TCG can also see the outlines of a populist upsurge. If the Internet has collapsed the "Coasean Floor" that once made grassroots networking prohibitively expensive, then the politics of the future could be dominated by more TV- "netroots"-type convergences, coming together on behalf of various causes, humanitarian as well as partisan, left, right, and center.
