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Going Beyond Live-Blogging SOTU? Online Organizing During Live Events

BY Micah L. Sifry | Wednesday, January 27 2010

Are you live-blogging the State of the Union? Join the crowd.

As politics gets more hyper-networked and public attention fragments, live events--especially the attention-grabbing kind--are becoming major digital organizing opportunities. The most common kind are in the realm of messaging and quick response; everyday you can see memes bubble up and spread online. At the moment, for example, one part of the political Twittersphere is chortling over the arrest of conservative media activist James O'Keefe (see the #jamesokeefemovies while another part is reacting to the news that Senator Joe Lieberman has just joined Twitter.

There's no better moment for this kind of online organizing than a national political event like a President's State of the Union speech; the only thing that comes close is Election Night or a nationally televised debate. Thus it's no surprise to see #sotu already trending high as online political activists get ready for tonight's speech by President Obama.

But chattering on Twitter, or live-blogging it, which more than 2000 sites and organizations are apparently promising to do!--is hardly the only or best way to use a live event for online organizing. See, for example, what "Rethink Afghanistan," a project of the Brave New Foundation, is doing tonight around the State of the Union, via its staffer Derrick Crowe, writing on OpenLeft:

Why watch the speech alone on TV when you can hang out with more than 11,000 people like you who want the Afghanistan war to end? Join the other fans of Rethink Afghanistan and watch the speech on our Facebook fan page.

* Rethink Afghanistan's fan page will have a live stream of a part of Rethink Afghanistan (The Cost of War) prior to the speech at 8:30 p.m. Eastern / 5:30 p.m. Pacific.
* Then, we'll carry a live stream of the State of the Union address.
* Brave New Foundation's Robert Greenwald will be there for the conversation, and I'll provide commentary and links to Afghanistan-related information.
* After the speech, our whole mob will head over to the White House's Facebook page to share our thoughts on his Afghanistan comments.

We hope you'll join us tomorrow night starting at 8:30 p.m. Eastern / 5:30 p.m. Pacific as our community gathers to rethink the State of the Union.

Note how Rethink Afghanistan is using multiple layers of engagement. Its strategists understand that people have many choices for watching SOTU--all equally good--but the opportunity to share the experience with other like-minded activists can add extra value to the experience. They're also planning to add value to the speech video by adding a chyron with a running tally of the cost of the war throughout the speech, and with liveblogging by the group's founder, Robert Greenwald. Finally, they're hoping they can get their activists to generate some live feedback in a highly visible place, the White House's Facebook page.

I'll get in touch with Greenwald afterwards to see what kind of results they get from this experiment. If you know of others, let me know in the comments.

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