A question of definition

"This is arguably the first presidential election of the HDTV age.  So is it more important a candidate looks good on high-def... or on YouTube?"

That's the question I asked author Neal Stephenson at a Q and A in London last night.  I couldn't ask about his new novel - I bought it on day one, but it's big and intimidating and haven't had courage to crack open the cover yet.  But my inner-fanboy desire to make an obscure allusion to his work could not be stifled.

Plus, I'd been rewatching that "Zero?" McCain moment that Danny had linked to earlier in the day.

I don't have a copy to hand, and haven't read it for 14 years, but I remember that in Interface - the political techno-thriller Stephenson co-wrote - one character claims that after HDTV is introduced into American homes only movie stars will be electable.  (The higher resolution making regular people, politicians included, appear hideous.)

Years ago, if Americans got to see a presidential candidate giving a speech, it was at a distance.  Across a town hall.  At a state fair or some-such.  This distance favoured candidates who were emotionally "hot".  Television would later give the appearance of something more intimate.

For the benefit of the audience Stephenson brought up the canonical example of the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon televised debates.  Television didn't do Nixon any favours, his physical reaction to the studio lights appeared to make him less trustworthy.  Radio listeners gave the debate to Nixon, but more people had seen it on TV where the advantage was with the visually cooler Kennedy.

That's the problem, Stephenson said, writers have with projecting technological advances - even into the near future.  It always seems far simpler when they're the ones deciding what the implications are going to be.  

TV may be high-def, but how many people in 2008 had their main exposure via the comparatively crappy resolution of online video?  

"It needs to be both" he eventually offered, but more as question than an answer.  If you can't see them sweat on YouTube, have we switched back on to some invisible path forked prior to 1960?  Is the best way to project a candidate on HDTV the best way to project them in low-resolution online.  Does it just scale down, or are the approaches fundamentally incompatible?

I guess it's a question for the pundits of the future.  Well, the future beginning next month.

Zero?