Activate Conference 09 The Internet has the power to bring a President to the White House, according to Huffington

The relationship between the press and politics has always been complex-in healthy democracies newspapers and politicians have tended to be simultaneously mutually dependent and antagonistic. Papers endorse candidates, but often strive to act as watchdogs over the acts of an incumbent government. The unmissable presence of the Internet in US Presidential Election, from the candidates' official campaigns and to the civilian creation of 'Obama-mania' has demonstrated that the media has become even further entangled in politics.  

It is imperative, however, that new medias, like their printed counterparts, when pertaining to some degree of neutrality should act as a balancing force in the political landscape. Huffington maintained that efforts should be made to ensure that the Internet acts as a "countervailing" strength against vested and ingrained interests.  

The Internet, as described by Huffington, boasts three characteristics that make it a particularly appropriate surveillance medium: Firstly, it is virulent- material can be circulated to an unprecedented scope, reaching millions of people. In the recent US healthcare debate, broadcaster NPR took photos of the audience in the committee room, revealing the identities of the stakeholders in the issue. The photos, uploaded to the web, have now "gone viral", having maximum exposure. Raw data is insufficient, according to Huffington, it "needs to go viral."

Secondly, Internet journalists and users are apparently more "obsessive" in their pursuit of stories than their print counterparts. "Mainstream media suffer from attention deficit disorder. New media suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder", Huffington said. A pertinent example is the work of the investigative reporter, Josh Marshall, of the Talking Points Memo Blog, who long after the mainstream media had abandoned the story of the firing of US attorneys by the Bush administration, continued digging.  As a result of their relentless probing, the Attorney General was forced to resign.  

The Internet evidently does have almost unlimited capacities to develop a multitude of stories in comparison to newspapers which have print restrictions. However, it would be reductive to suggest that papers do not engage in sustained investigations, the recent exposure of British MP's expenses by the Telegraph is a fine example of this. Moreover, as print is an embedded presence in society, one could argue that its revelations have louder repercussions on the wider public.

Finally, the increasingly user-generated nature of the Internet means that it lends itself to citizen journalism. The public is a keen, ubiquitous and inexpensive tool that is being utilised to keep public authorities to account. The HuffPo alone has a network of 13,000 citizen journalists and 20 million users. Next week, they will be called upon to start "liveblogging the lobbyists" to ensure the fairness of the platform for health reform. Similar initiatives are being pursued by other investigative projects. ProPublica's "Adopt a Stimulus" project, a month into its inception, already has 1,000 people involved. At the minute, they are working onsmall-scale assignments, as a sort of training experience while the site's technology is being developed.  

Citizen journalism is also a resource for the mainstream media. Amanda Michel, editor of distributed reporting at ProPublica predicts that the lines between traditional and citizen journalism are continuing to blur, as the mainstream media relies on reader input. Many established publications have started their own online ventures inviting reader involvement. This is "not a new thing", Michel emphasised in an interview with FishBowlNY, as reporting has always been about the exchange of information. Despite evident concerns that amateur involvement could negate the need for professional journalists, even one of its greatest advocates, Michel maintains, "it's essential that you have people who are paid as working journalists".

Discussions of new media will inevitably vocalise the challenges that they present to the mainstream printed press as rival news providers. Yet these challenges can be translated into opportunities for development and many print publications across the globe have shown themselves ready to use new technology to their own benefit.

Sources:  The Guardian,
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