The Times has an interesting take on the new media’s infiltration of the DNC:

The Democratic National Convention is the first in which people are passing on enormous amounts of information to friends, who are in turn passing it to more friends, mostly by way of YouTube, the superhighway’s video conveyer belt, which didn’t exist during the 2004 convention.

Although, unlike Nicole, I did not attend the DNC this year, the omnipresence of people I know and sources I trust - from DailyKos to my Twitter friends, to the Netroots Nation crowd, and dozens of other grassroots media sources - has given me a refreshingly unflitered lense to appreciate the street-level activity and millieu that surrounds the tradmed coverage of keynote speeches and pundit pontification. Not quite like being there, but far superior to the Village filter we’ve suffered through up until now.

Twitter, facebook, youtube, and of course the scores of bloggers on the ground present the new media which lets regular people - even those of us not in Denver - to grasp the full story behind the convention, free of the five-headed-filter (ABCSNBCox).

The organizational and technological smarts of the Obama and Dean crowd are essential - see the reference to Studio ‘08 in the Times piece - but the brilliance of the Big Tent is where we really see the emergence and importance of new media. Markos’ Day 2 observations offers some keen observations on the rising influence of new media and the convergence of print and broadcast.

Most importantly, aside from coverage of the speeches, nomination logistics, and such, it has triggered great coverage from some alternative media as well. I highly recommend checking out Democracy Now’s podcasts as a starting point for alternative takes on the corporatized vision of the convention.

Well, two more nights to go! I’m really looking forward to Bill Clinton’s speech tongiht. Mostly I hope that he lays into McCain with a vengeance. If we don’t nail him to the wall tonight, he will basically come away from this convention unscathed, and that, my friends, would be a crime.

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