With Jamaica’s election debates two weeks away viewers of CNN tonight will tune in to a debate among Democratic Presidential hopefuls with questioning provided not by a select panel but members of the public, via video-sharing website YouTube.

“They’re a little bit out of their comfort zone,” says CNN Senior Vice President David Bohrman on CNN.com. “It’s going to be very different than how (candidates) react to panelists and journalists at a traditional debate.”

YouTube, along with other Web 2.0 sites which rely on user-generated content, has been credited with democratising media access.

While politicians in Jamaica talk up their e-readiness to a public not yet fully exposed to the technology, their colleagues in the United States are faced by bloggers who have gained large audiences by scrutinising both elected representatives and mainstream media.

It is probably no coincidence that upon visiting the Daily Kos blog – which averages more than half a million visits per day – today’s banner advertisement is promoting the CNN/YouTube debate.

Could Jamaica try the same approach?

“Not yet,” says Gary Allen, Deputy Chairman of the National Debates Commission. A select panel of journalists will instead question senior politicians from the People’s National Party (PNP) and Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Mr. Allen worries that not enough questions would be submitted given the relatively lower level of Internet access in Jamaica compared to the U.S.

Aware of the CNN/YouTube debate, and with Internet access rising in Jamaica, he says the YouTube approach could be tried next election: “I believe that a kind of people’s debate that could drive the questioning is where we could be heading.”

Watch the debate live from 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on CNN TV or CNN.com

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Citizen journalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.