Viewfinder: Power to the (Video) People

Many people spend 10% of their waking day watching TV. During that TV viewing, they receive a whole lot of information. TV shapes their opinions, changes or affirms their biases and alters their perceptions of the world (and how they fit into it). I believe that all of this happens, even during the process of laughing at a sitcom. Television has a profound effect on people and, consequently, the world at large.

It is exciting to know that through the Internet we can all be players in the game of TV production. The video equipment that you can buy at retail store today enables you to produce a "TV show" in less time and of higher quality than ever before. Just a few short years ago, this level of video production wasn't available even to broadcast TV stations in many smaller cities. Back then, they did not have computer editing nor did they have digital camcorders.

In fact, with today's technological advances, we could find ourselves living in a democracy beyond the wildest dreams of the founding fathers of the USA. Jefferson and Franklin never imagined instant text, audio and video communication among the citizenry. Their expectation was government-subsidized delivery of messages sent v…