Politics and Technology

Washington Post reporter, Jose Antonio Vargas, spoke to students from three universities though C-SPAN's Distance Learning program on January 29 regarding new technologies. Vargas spoke to students about today's politics and how new technologies such as texting and Youtube play a role in it.

Vargas emphasized the changes that new technology and media are bringing to politics and government. He informed students and host, Steve Scully, that the White House website became interactive the moment that Barack Obama was sworn in.

One students stated that he felt the McCain campaign was hurt by not keeping up with technologies and asked Vargas what he thought the Repulican party needed to do to ralley votes and supporters.

"The Obama campaign, in many ways, was groundbreaking in this way," Vargas said. He continued to answer the student's question by stating, "you can't just run a campaign anymore". By this he was saying that with today's techmologies you cannot simply put up signs and run commercials on television.

"Using technology means you're inviting people to be a part of the campaign," Vargas said.

One George Mason student asked Vargas if he thought these new technologies would bring a new found interest to politics.

Vargas emphasized that politicians need to have a strategy and know their audience before launching a page or website so it will be effective. Another student sparked a discussion about the website Moveon.org.

No matter how you look at it there is no going back to the old way of campaigning and doing politics. With Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, texting and other simiar technologies government as we know it has changed forever. Politicians will have to learn new tricks if they want to win elections or reach out to citizens. Because if they don't, there will always be somebody else finding some creative new way to reach out to voters.