Reality re-check: Will the Internet draft the next president?

April 18, 2008

Organize your neighbors, it's time for a (re)viewing party. As part of the Berkman Center’s ongoing tenth anniversary celebration, Berkman@10, we’re retrieving some multimedia classics from our past.

To date, we’ve re-presented Lawrence Lessig’s fall 2000 debate with Jack Valenti, brought back Charles Nesson’s framing of IS2K7, University: Knowledge Beyond Authority, and re-produced John Perry Barlow's reassesment of his 1994 essay on the economy of ideas.

This week, in anticipation of our May 14 event with the Institute of Politics -- Youth, Civic Engagement, and the 2008 Campaign -- we're highlighting an earlier, election year collaboration with the IOP.

In December 2004, to kick off the fifth biennial Internet & Society conference, Votes, Bits, and Bytes, the Berkman Center teamed up with the John F. Kennedy, Jr. Forum for a panel discussion that asked, Will the Internet draft the next president?  Joe Trippi (then Dean campaign manager and now one of the forces behind Change Congress) and Michael Turk (Bush-Cheney e-campaign director) were interrogated by Kathleen Matthews on how the Internet is "facilitating campaigns, empowering voters." When we speak of the Net and politics, what's hype, and what's an authentic transformation? Now, in '08, this cluster of questions has renewed urgency.

Without further ado...
we invite you to visit the Forum's
amazing video archive for
the whole presentation.

And more: Read along as David Weinberger live blogs the discussion.

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Berkman@10 is in full swing:

• Registration is open for the May15-16 Berkman@10 conference on "The Future of the Internet."
• Registration is also open for the May 16 Berkman@10 gala, where the first-ever Berkman Awards will be presented.
• And much more: keep up to date with lead up events, the evolving conference agenda, and related announcements at http://www.berkmanat10.org.