What real elections can learn from reality TV voting

In time for July 4, Henry Jenkins has written a fascinating history of the emergence of political parties among voters for reality TV shows like Big Brother and American Idol. The much-bandied stat that more Americans vote for American Idol than the American President is debunked (American Idol voters openly cast more than one vote; American President voters only get to do this if they have friends at Diebold). In its stead, he leaves us with an account of the voting strategies employed by different blocs trying to keep their favorites on reality TV, and what these have to teach us about real-world elections.

Here's what they were advocating for the Big Brother election:

Vote for Chicken George to go back into the Big Brother house! The man cracked under the pressure of BB1, not even really having to evict people. Putting him back in the house would be excellent. Also, his wife staged the first ever VFTW by getting an entire town to vote for someone else to save George. We owe it to the chicken family to make the crazy chicken man an All Star.

Why "Chicken George"? Once again, there's a history here: during the first season, a fan campaign sought to smuggle messages into the house, where guests were allegedly kept in isolation, renting planes to fly over, lobbing balls containing messages inside, trying to convince the houseguests to walk out in mass and leave the producers holding the bag. If you've seen The Truman Show, you've got a pretty good idea of what this campaign looked like. Chicken George emerged as a key player in that effort -- the person most shook up by the messages they were receiving and the person who almost led the walkout of the program, before the producers succeeded in talking everyone into staying.

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