Barack Obama's race speech a hit on Yuotube - Media Blog 10

Fri Mar 21, 6:51 PM ET



SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Barack Obama's stirring speech on racial division in the United States has become an online hit viewed nearly 2.5 million times on YouTube by Friday afternoon.

ADVERTISEMENT

A video clip of Obama's speech lasting 37 minutes and 39 seconds, an epic by Internet standards, has attracted the most viewers while video snippets of the presentation have been seen by tens of thousands of people.

"This speech made my eyes to water" one person wrote in an online discussion forum attached to the full-length Obama video.

"I almost started to cry."

Online searches for "Obama speech" rocketed 7,627 percent the day after the US presidential candidate took on the sensitive issue of race in a March 18 oratory, according to a Yahoo Buzz service that tracks what's hot online.

"Some folks placed the talk in a grand historic context. Many pundits praised it for its record-shattering honesty," Molly McCall of Yahoo Buzz wrote in a posting detailing a surge in interest in Obama's presentation.

"We can't tie them together for sure, but it's notable that queries for 'I have a dream speech' and 'Martin Luther King Free at Last speech' both spiked the day after Obama spoke."

In his speech, the Democratic presidential contender described being the son of a white mother and a black father and then laid bare racial tensions in US culture that politicians usually avoid discussing.

The impetus for the speech was controversy over remarks made by Obama's religious mentor and longtime pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

"So Obama's got buzz," McCall wrote. "Whether it hurts the candidate or not remains to be seen."

Among popular speech-related videos on YouTube is a satire by comedian Jon Stewart on his politically oriented program The Daily Show.

In a video clip viewed more than 123,000 times by Friday night, Stewart made sport of "Obama talking to Americans about race as though they were adults."

"This is a speech for intelligent Americans," a person identified by the online name Quake132 wrote in a YouTube discussion forum.

"This is why I fear most Americans will not understand it."

source http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080321/lf_afp/lifestyleusinternetpoliticsobama_080321225155


I chose to use thixs as a media blog because I felt it was not only a historic moment for America but it showed that many people today are getting more and more into politics especially younger adults. Even though I personally am a Clinton suppporter I also think Barak is a great candidate and the fact that I can vote for one or the other is a great feeling. What stood out the most for me in the speech is when he talks about coming from a family that has different races in them having a white grandmother and growing up not knowing where he belongs in society and the way society treats use because of our race. Obama spoke on alot of issues many or really no other political candidate has spoken on and I think mainly due to the fact that we havent had diversity until now and race was never an issue for other candidates. This reminds me of "Paths of least resistance" and Individualism that we discussed in class. That the "white" candidates didnt feel the need to make speeches like this and of this caliber because race relations was never their problems and to believe that you can change a melting pot like america without addressing racism is somewhat impossible. For the first time in my life I have never watched full debates or even speeches like I am now with the democratic candidates and I feel like everytime either Clinton or Obama speaks I feel like change is coming and at this point it can only be for the better.