Daily Kos reminds us (as if we could forget) that this is the year of the YouTube campaign video. The latest, hottest video, “in a very peculiar YouTube moment,” goes back twelve years and belies Hillary Clinton’s memory of Bosnian sniper fire:

This time, the problem for the candidate isn’t something she just said that ended up on YouTube, it’s that what she said is easily refuted by watching video available for everyone to see on YouTube.

It’s another reminder that the Internet is changing the nature of journalism — taking battles to the blogosphere, lifting the classless Drudges of the net to the level of “serious” journalists, making quick celebrities of pudgy John McCain supporters, bringing America right into Obama’s church, and panicking newspaper journalists.

In the Wall Street Journal today, Lee Gomes asks if the web deserves its power to influence politics. He thinks the web has its good points (diversity, the democratization of expression) and its disadvantages: “There is a danger that our politics might be shaped by insignificant events that assume an importance merely by having been caught on tape.”

This democratization of expression is key, as Eric Alterman’s thoughtful essay in the latest New Yorker shows. Alterman says the 1920s saw a similar intellectual debate on the tension between “knowledge-based elites” (like today’s print-based snobs) and advocates of “democratic education” (today’s Internet upstarts). The blogosphere’s big bang makes “genuinely democratic discourse” possible.

But this discourse brings with it democracy’s perennial problem: Equality lends itself to mediocrity, and democracy devolves to the lowest common dumb denominator. Alterman predicts, “And so we are about to enter a fractured, chaotic world of news, characterized by superior community conversation but a decidedly diminished level of first-rate journalism.”

Gene Weingarten discovered this when he recklessly volunteered to expose himself to 24 straight hours of newspaper, TV, radio, and Internet punditry. His witty Washington Post account says it all:

There are too many voices, competing too hard, fighting for attention, ranting, redundant, random. The dissemination of fact and opinion is no longer the sole province of people and institutions with the money to buy network monopolies or ink by the ton. … Now, all is out of control. Everyone with a computer is a potential pundit; anyone with a video camera can be on a screen.

The most-watched videos on YouTube are mostly wordless clips like “The Evolution of Dance” (top of the list at 62 million hits), where viewers don’t really comment - they just watch and enjoy and move on.  Yet, the most-discussed videos on YouTube, where people make lots of long comments, like those here at WMB, tend to be the videos about politics and religion.  This article discusses some of the YouTube videos that have generated the most comment, and it’s an interesting read.

To all you moms out there, this video is for you:

Anything else you would add to her “overture” of things moms say in a day?

News broke last week that GodTube, a free video-sharing Web site that rode YouTube’s coattails to popularity, set a record even its namesake never held: It was the Internet’s fastest-growing site in August. Sources pegged the number of unique visitors between 1.7 million and 5 million, an almost 1,000 percent growth since it started Aug. 8.

Yes, there has been Conservapedia, the Wikipedia alternative, and Famster and MyChurch, Christian spin-offs of Facebook and MySpace. But so far, this is the most successful Christian foray into “Web 2.0″ — a term for the outburst of online communities, social-networking sites and wikis that are remaking the Internet.

Chris Wyatt, GodTube’s CEO, said he hopes GodTube will help reverse the American church’s eroding importance. But when Fox News asked if GodTube is a “fair swap” for church, Wyatt responded, “We’re not a substitute for church. We’re just there for the millions of individuals who are seeking a new faith experience online.”

Early GodTube reviews were swift and swordlike. Critics like George Simpson are giving the site the third-degree. True, many videos are silly. (In one, apologist Ray Comfort debunks evolution using his famous banana example, pointing to evolution’s “non-slip surface.”)

Other Internet observers have wondered why it took Christians — who created alternative phonebooks, eHarmony and a plethora of faith-centered radio and TV stations and magazines — this long to capitalize on Web 2.0.

“Sure, denominations and sects have their own . . . web resources — some even run dynamic, regularly updated web portals,” wrote Barry Summerlin, a contributor to BloggingStocks. “But your web search for religion will mostly yield a lot of domain squatting . . . and last century’s web design.”

Summerlin points to some interesting data: While the number of Google search entries for “God” and “Jesus” barely eclipses those for “Britney Spears” in the past three years, the term “church” has routinely bested all three.

Thirty-five Californian college students are getting credit for watching YouTube and posting comments. Alexandra Juhasz, media professor at Pitzer College, designed the course, “Learning from YouTube,” to examine YouTube’s social role. Eric Bramlett said Juhasz’ students aren’t the only ones who can learn from YouTube. Christians can, too.

Bramlett, creative arts director at Community Christian Church, directed a parody of the Mac vs. PC commercials, poking fun at the straight-laced, suit-wearing, bumper-sticker-loving Christian stereotype. Bramlett said a Christian site and an Apple site found his YouTube video and linked to it: “In one day, we had a ridiculous amount of hits.”

Bramlett has posted 50 videos on YouTube and boasts almost 1,000 subscribers. “Churches can take advantage of that kind of buzz that YouTube can create,” Bramlett said. “It’s got real potential to be a front door for your friends who don’t go to church.” Bramlett said videos can give non-believing friends a taste of your church experience, and he has used his clips to witness to non-believing friends.

Bramlett said churches who use YouTube are adapting to the culture’s new language: “We live in a short attention span culture. … The language of that culture is short, two-minute videos that are easily watched, easily finished.” Some may object that Christians should be changing that language, but Bramlett disagrees with the assumption that length equals depth: “I think you can be very poignant with few words and with little time.” Bramlett also believes that humor can both relax and challenge people.

Bramlett said YouTube is one way for Christians to “have a say” in modern culture: “”You can start a buzz, you can start a spark, you can plant a seed.”