MySpace, MTV to Host Interactive Talks with Presidential Candidates

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on August 23, 2007 - 11:30am.

New York - News Corp.'s MySpace social network and Viacom's MTV on Thursday jointly announced that they will produce a series of one-on-one dialogues between the leading Democratic and Republican presidential candidates and young Americans.

The companies said the events, held on college campuses nationwide and broadcast live on MTV and mtvU, will be the first to allow at-home viewers and a live audience to interact with candidates in real-time.

Users will be able to submit questions via MySpaceIM, mobile devices and e-mail while watching the live webcast on MTV.com or MySpace.com; the sites will also capture viewer reactions through live polling tools.

The first hour-long forum will be held in New Hampshire on Sept. 27 with Sen. John Edwards.

Additional events have been confirmed with Democratic presidential candidates Clinton, Dodd, Obama and Richardson, and Republican candidates Brownback, Giuliani, Hunter, Paul and Romney.

MySpace will also hold its own mock Presidential Primary on Jan. 1 and 2, 2008.

http://www.myspacetv.com

http://impact.myspace.com

Published in DMW Daily, August 23, 2007

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Comments

Huge Potential But...

Submitted by Zach Marks (not verified) on August 23, 2007 - 5:07pm.

These could be the ingredients for a new kind of truly democratic debate where candidates will refrain from going on talking-point tangents filled with nonspeak. But I'm still a bit skeptical that the MTV/MySpace debates will be able to succeed where the YouTube debate fell flat. No candidates really had their feet held to the fire in the YouTube debate because CNN editors chose what questions were used rather than, say, letting viewers vote on which question they'd like to see asked. How will the MySpace debates be any different if MTV editors are simply letting young people submit questions and then letting candidates have a go at the ones they want answered? I write more on this in my op-ed in today's Huffington Post.