PressEthic

If you type marijuana into YouTube, 2732 results come up. Wading through home videos such as “Cooking with marijuana”, “Marijuana Truths”, and “Start to smoke marijuana”, you will also come across films from the U.S. government’s National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

Twelve advertisements, most of which have already been aired on television, were recently posted on YouTube by the Office of National Drug Control Policy under the username ONDCPstaff.

“Fist in Mouth” shows a teenage boy sitting in a school nurse’s office. He tries to talk to camera but his whole hand is in his mouth. A nurse translates for him, telling how yesterday his friends told him to smoke pot, and today they told him to put his fist in his mouth, and now he can’t get it out again. “I am an idiot,” she says for him. A voice over follows: “Live above the influence, above them, above weed.” The final image gives the abovetheinfluence.com logo, the official website for the ONDCP’s youth campaign.

This is the first time a U.S. government Cabinet agency has used YouTube to communicate a message to the public. In a news release, John Walters, Director of ONDCP (a.k.a. “President Bush's ‘Drug Czar’”), is quoted as saying:

Over the past several years there has been an explosion in the number of Americans using emerging technologies to publish their views, learn about important issues, and to communicate with each other. We know that in order to remain effective communicators in this new information age, public institutions must adapt to meet the realities of these promising technologies.

I have nothing against this new YouTube initiative: the advertisements are clever and striking; more importantly, it is clear what they are and who has posted them -- perhaps the reason that most of their ratings are a measly one and a half out of five stars.

One concern I do have, however, is regarding the extent to which the U.S. government, and any other governments for that matter, intend to “adapt” to these new technologies in order to “remain effective communicators.”

Last month, Antonio Regalado reported in the Wall Street Journal that an apparently amateur YouTube video spoofing Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth”, was in fact a product of DCI Group, a lobbying firm who worked for Exxon Mobil Corporation. As he pointed out:

The anti-Gore video represents a less well-known side of YouTube. As its popularity has exploded, the public video-sharing site has drawn marketers looking to build buzz for new music releases and summer blockbusters. Now, it's being tapped by political operatives, public relations experts and ad agencies to sway opinions.

And there’s no reason to assume that these operatives and agencies will stop at YouTube. Popular internet socialising sites such as Facebook and MySpace, the latter of which was founded primarily as a revolutionary advertising tool, could be the next step in the online battle to effect opinion.

In his article on the anti-drug YouTube campaign, the BBC's Nick Miles ended with this very disturbing recommendation from Michael Cornfield, who teaches political management at George Washington University:

"The government should start recruiting young people to use MySpace, the social networking website," he says.

"To spread the anti-drugs message, peer pressure is always more effective than suggestions from the government."

The government employing people to communicate with the public through MySpace. Think about it.