Is a new site, VoterVoter.com, one step closer to media critic Jay Rosen’s vision of a “producer democracy?”

VoterVoter.com allows regular people to place the political ad of your choice in the specific television market of your choice. VoterVoter.com handles all the Federal Election Commission Guidelines. Oh yeah, and you can even upload your own ad, crafted ever so tenderly by the most loving hands at home (or office).

I’m torn. This site would have been great in 2006, when political videos were shiny and exciting and new – especially the gotcha videos – and it felt really empowering for everyone to tape their own clips and load them on YouTube.

Then I read Lee Siegel’s (yes, that Lee Siegel) new book, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. At first, I scribbled lots of disagreeable comments in the columns of my book, especially when Siegel criticizes the language we use to describe the Internet as a democratizing medium. I even disagreed with the way Siegel mocked the Internet as Aristotle’s unmoved mover.

One of Siegel’s points is that by commercializing everything, the Internet monetizes all of our free time, from the hours we spend bidding on shoes on EBay to the Twitter posts every 15 minutes to the “create an ad for Good Morning America/Dove/Doritos/Presidential Candidates” contests.

Another one of Siegel’s points is that all of this activity is actually undemocratic:

Internet boosters claim that they’re the champions of a new age of “demassification.” By that, they mean that they’re allowing individuals to create their own cultural and commercial choices. But what they’ve really created is a more potent form of homogenization.

I can think of lots of snappy replies for each of these points. But as I progressed with my reading, the taunting evolved from being merely annoying to being a possibly interesting cultural critique.

The democratization of political advertising is an interesting exercise. Why not bypass the political consultants? Some of the media buyers can make millions of dollars during a presidential election. Why not create political ads made and purchased by the people?

But let’s be honest: aren’t we really talking about is more spin, more marketing, and more manipulation – not a new form of discussion or debate.

If this is your thing, great. But I’ll get really excited when we build new places for discussion and dialog.

Shaun Dakin, CEO and Founder of StopPoliticalCalls.org, just announced that Rep. Virginia Foxx (R NC-5) is the first Member of Congress to take the “Do Not Robo Call” pledge.

Dakin created the pledge to fill what he believes is a void in the National Do Not Call Registry:

Many voters consider their homes to be a sanctuary and consider calls – especially the automated ‘robo’ calls – from politicians and political groups to be invasive. It’s so invasive, in fact, that the experience alone can turn people off from the entire electoral process. If the NPDNC can significantly reduce political calls during the 2008 election, we will have delivered an important win for the American family and for our political system overall.

We had lunch with Shaun at IPDI in January, and many of us are convinced that Dakin may face a tough sell in Wahsington, DC. Robocalls have become a staple campaign tool. They give volunteers, including politically active students, something to do. They feed a desire to spend every necessary second persuading voters before the polls open on Election Day.

However, Shaun appears to represent a growing segment of voters who simply feel harassed during campaign season – people who want to be left alone inside the comfort of their homes.

The debate will be lively.

As the television airwaves fill with political ads, the folks at ValueClick Media (one of the Platinum sponsors at this year’s Politics Online Conference) bring up an important point: there’s still enough online advertising space to reach hundreds of millions of eyeballs. That’s right. Hundreds of millions of eyeballs.

In response to a crowded field of political television spots that left some consumer advertisers preempted prior to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, ValueClick Media, a division of ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK), has reserved 300 million online advertising impressions per day for candidates and political action committees to target voters in states with primary contests between now and Super Tuesday on February 5.

Speaking of online advertising, the Politics Online Conference is offering a panel on online advertising in the 2008 elections (chaired by Michael Bassik) and a Meet the Technologists session that will allow conference attendees to talk one-on-one with several major ad networks.

Speaking of Super Tuesday, IPDI and GW’s Graduate School of Political Management are hosting a Super Tuesday Post Mortem, called What Comes Next? Super Tuesday & the Road to the White House. Details arriving shortly.

This afternoon I sat on a panel at Brookings Institution titled Bloggers, Buzz and Sound Bites: Innovative Media Approaches to Humanitarian Response. Given the title, I expected to hear a lot about, well, blogs. Perhaps a little about YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, and social media sites.

Certainly, there was plenty of that kind of talk, thanks largely to presentations by Save Darfur, International Rescue Committee, Rendon Group, and ReliefWeb.

But there was also something else. Something I’m not used to hearing in political circles.

During her presentation on how Save Darfur meets its communications goals online, Colleen Connors mention paid online advertising.

Aha. This is different. Most of the discussions I like to attend and many of the topics I like to encourage at IPDI look using technology to create community. Marketing is passé. Communicating and community are trendy. After all, community is a warm topic. I feel good talking about it – the way Prius drivers must feel next SUVs. Community is where it is at – especially when that community does something.

According to Connors, paid online marketing has helped Save Darfur reach out to potential members of the community and sign up for their email list. Outreach efforts then transfer to cultivating the registered members of that community.

Perhaps I wasn’t listening. There is something to online advertising.

Tonight, IPDI is hosting an event titled When Idealism Isn’t Enough: Selling Online Politics in a Broadcast Era. At the event, we’ll announce that IPDI is developing a new publication, a set of practical best practices for online political advertising.

We want to explore the topic rigorously, marrying research with anecdotal knowledge and practical, political applications. The publication will be released at our 2008 Politics Online Conference.

It’s a new topic for me. That’s why I’m looking for your feedback. What are you doing? Where have you succeeded? Failed? Send me your thoughts at ipdi.@ipdi.org, and you will be able to help me shape the publication.