I first heard about Barak Obama when I received a link to a "viral" video that had this beautiful girl singing a song called "I've Got a Crush on Obama". Obama has gone a long way since and has become a real threat to the possibility of a second Clinton sitting in the White House. I'm sure that Obama girl is not the sole reason that this politician of change is on a roll but the video definitely deserves its fair share of credit for putting him on the map. The new media are cutting themselves a bigger piece of the electoral pie each time a new election is faced anywhere in the world. And Malta will be no exception.

This is the age of Youtube videos, instant information on mobile devices and networking groups. The Internet continues to provide new tools that allow information to get into our homes faster. Even gaming devices like Nintendo's Wii can be hooked up to the Internet, and before you know it you could be twisting your wrist and pressing buttons to get the latest news from around the globe - literally. Politicians the world over have gradually accustomed themselves to the new environment and political Websites have been getting more and more sophisticated.

The beauty of the new media lies elsewhere though. Unlike newspapers, TVs and radios, the debate on the Internet is two-way. Gone are the days of speaking from the pulpit as more and more netizens prefer to engage in a two-way discussion with their future representatives. A message to your politician is only a click away. It does not even stop at that either. Before the Internet, political machines were the only source for political debate. You needed money to own a TV, a newspaper or a radio in order to influence the local debate. Either that or lobby heavily to have the right people in the right places.

Blogs, Youtube videos and discussion forums are changing this landscape as we speak. Type PN or MLP into the Youtube search box and you will get dozens of amateur videos promoting this or that party. The citizens have entered the fray. Their work does not only stop at comic parody and includes political videos edited just as though they are made by some party apparatchik.

Our politicians still lag behind. On New Year's Eve, I was with a group of friends who took exception to receiving an SMS from a Nationalist candidate without ever having subscribed to a list or another. Like the pamphlets stuffed into your letterbox, SMSs and mass emails will gradually be seen for what they are - a pathetic attempt to personalise contact with the electorate.

Personalisation should lie elsewhere. Blogs are the current hype. A politician with a blog is one who discusses issues with the people on a daily basis (and, incidentally, not one who uses the blog as some glorified diary). He or she will receive comments and will be able to answer accordingly without the need of office hours and barriers that force constituents into kow-towing before their almightiness. The Internet helps to break that psychology of deference towards politicians that has built up after decades of monologues and one-way traffic. Immediacy in both time and space is the main currency. Freedom of speech is the other. The Internet has returned the word to the mute few who were sidelined for too long while local political discussion degenerated into a bipartisan debacle without substance.

There's hope ahead. The chances are that a debate triggered on the Internet spills onto what for a few years yet will still be known as the MSM (mainstream media). There are already signs of this interaction. Newspapers have begun to refer to the Internet debate and we have already witnessed some filling a page or two with posts from such debates on the net. It's not exactly an ideal situation as yet. The practice of quoting blog posts in full smacks of unprofessional page filling rather than lively debate. Elsewhere in the world blogs are quoted, criticised and engaged just as one would engage another journalist or columnist in the media. The interaction between MSM and the new media is encouraged abroad and the rise of newsgroups in the mid-nineties was also thanks to mainstream journalists seeking feedback for their writing.

It could be easy to dismiss this idea as being premature. You may think that this will all happen many years from now. You would be wrong. It's happening now. The writing is on your monitor. In America usage of Internet as a reference point doubles with each campaign. The UK and France follow closely as both blogs and traditional media strengthen their presence on the Net. Russian elections too had their fair share of electronic electioneering. There's the dark side too. Blogger Al-Farhan was not too happy when Saudi authorities had him imprisoned for "violating non-security regulations", whatever that means. Japan's presidential hopefuls were barred from using the Internet in their campaign as the authorities struggled to cope with the new media.

Some question marks will arise in Malta too. Will the pre-election moratorium be observed by blogs? Will the current interest in what bloggers are saying, the videos on Websites and the number of political Websites gather momentum as E-day (mark II) approaches? It all remains to be seen. One thing is for certain - insofar as local politics is concerned we can aspire to a new Youtopia where the citizen regains his rightful place in the political debate and stops being a simple figure that only comes in useful every five years.