The music industry is painfully familiar with the impact of Napster and some of the other now infamous file-sharing sites which have brought many record companies (some would say justly so) to their knees. Artistes and producers now salivate at the promotional possibilities of You Tube and the iPod is as commonplace as a Paris Hilton sighting. Yet while many pundits were aware of the revolutionary impact digital technologies would have on the entertainment sector few could have imagined the tremendous effect they would have on the political process. When Bill Clinton left office seven years ago, while the Internet was up and running, You Tube was not around. What is more I doubt the creators of this site could have imagined it would have featured so prominently in the political process when they created it.

What is ironic is that Barack Obama has proven himself to be more adept at using the web-based technology for political purposes than is Hillary, whose husband championed investments in what was dubbed the dotcom boom. If ever one needed an example of the law of unintended consequences at work, one need to look no further than to Hillary's demise in the recent presidential primaries due in no small measure to Obama's ability to mobilise funds at the grassroots level on the Internet.

Some will point to a generational divide as being resonsible for the difference in the respective abilities of the democratic candidates to embrace the opportunities being presented by these Web based developments. In fact exit polls have shown that Obama has a much bigger electoral majority among younger and more educated Americans than does his older rival. Does this younger group of voters favour Obama because of his use of the emergent technologies?
What is clear is that through his digital fund-raising interface Obama seems poised to minimise the influence of lobbyists and special interest donors who have virtually hijacked the political process. Obama gets contributions averaging ninety dollars on the Internet, tapping into a seemingly inexhaustible supply of cash for his campaign without having to mortgage the patrimony of the American people. This has very important implications for the functioning of a democracy.

Yet if the wonders of the digital age has served Obama well it should also be noted that it has also hurt him. The Jeremiah Wright tapes came to the attention of the mainstream media largely through postings on You Tube. What is more is that most people became aware of the Jeremiah Wright saga (despite wall to wall coverage on cable television) through You Tube. What is important though is that the Digital Age also presented the opportunity of rebuttal through blogs and other web based media.

On a lighter note it is You Tube which brought the "Obama Girl" singing about her "crush on" the presidential hopeful to the world.

Of course the CNN YouTube Debates which allowed ordinary Americans to ask questions of their presidential candidates through recorded videos provides a clear example of the intersection of old and new media.
The potential for the strengthening of democracy through the utilisation of digital technologies is mind boggling. Just imagine the day when we can vote by our cell phone. The fact is the technology to pull this off is already here. I remember men laughing at Ryan Peralto when he spoke of the possibility of electronic voting. Such a system seemed farfetched and fanciful. History is replete with men who have ben loudly ridiculed as quacks and who are later quietly vindicated as geniuses.

On Friday, I attended a seminar organised by the Telecommunications Policy and Management Programme at the University of the West Indies, which examined some of the opportunities created by mobile telephony. TPMP head, Dr Hopeton Dunn spoke to some of the challenges which we face as the influence of mobile telephony becomes more pervasive. He cited the observations of Muhammad Yunus (founder of the Grameen Phone, a programme which seeks to provide wirless telephonic services for bottom of the pyramid consumers) that the fastest way to take a man out of poverty is to give him a cell phone. If Yunus is right, then Jamaica should be moving out of poverty at a faster rate than any other nation given the rate of cell phone owneship in this country.

Of course, the cell phone like any other technology has its good and bad sides. One lady pointed to the role cell phones could play in the improvement of our justice system noting that most of these devices can do video recording and so can be used as an important evidentiary tool. I immediately recall the beating of a Jamaican student at the hands of his schoolmate and realised that justice would perhaps never have been served had the incident not been recorded by a cell phone. Of course, this feature of the phone has the potential to be abused as a tool of evidence since it can also be used o fabricate evidence. What is clear is that every technology can be used to achieve positive or negative ends dependent on human motive. I also believe that cell phones make assassinations much easier, however it could also aid the apprehension of killers.

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