Who's afraid of the blogosphere?
It's been a while since I ran across a "Blogging: Threat or Menace?" piece. It's all so (yawn) 2004. But the enigmatic Bordgame brought this to my attention. It's a classic of the genre-- interspersing nail-biting anxiety-laden proclamations, with self-consciously wry dismissals of the whole phenomenon of the blog. And it completely misses the point-- of political blogging, anyway.
In my case (and that of many other bloggers, even many who have become "blogstars"-- I just made that up!), it isn't because we think we're journalists, or that the press should be overthrown. In fact, the author comes pretty close to the mark when he mentions-- but then drops-- checks and balances. The "blogstars" have started to accept advertising as their readership grew and more of their time was taken up by producing a blog that people wanted to read. If you set up your own site, more readers means more bandwidth demand, means higher fees for you, the blogger. It's economic necessity. (Of course, there are certainly those with aspirations of becoming journalists themselves, but that's another issue.) You start out wanting to make a difference, but the more people who hear your voice, the more you actually have to pay to be heard.
On the right and the left, I don't doubt that many bloggers see themselves as an important corrective to the media's shortcomings. When progressive bloggers learn that a gay male prostitute was given access to the White House and presidential briefings without obtaining standard FBI clearance, we think it's newsworthy. When conservative bloggers learn that the mother of a fallen US soldier in Iraq is criticizing the waar policy, they think she needs to be be made not-newsworthy. (Huh, I'd never thought about how we tend to fight for more information while the righties fight for less...)
I think that blogs are doing just what they should be-- enabling people to organize for causes they support (on whichever side of the political fence), disseminate information (or regrettably, disinformation), and work as a consumer voice that reminds the mainstream media that there are a whole lot of us out here who don't give a damn about the missing white girl du jour when the nation is teetering on the brink of becoming a corporatist theocracy. Christo-nomics, perhaps?
In my case (and that of many other bloggers, even many who have become "blogstars"-- I just made that up!), it isn't because we think we're journalists, or that the press should be overthrown. In fact, the author comes pretty close to the mark when he mentions-- but then drops-- checks and balances. The "blogstars" have started to accept advertising as their readership grew and more of their time was taken up by producing a blog that people wanted to read. If you set up your own site, more readers means more bandwidth demand, means higher fees for you, the blogger. It's economic necessity. (Of course, there are certainly those with aspirations of becoming journalists themselves, but that's another issue.) You start out wanting to make a difference, but the more people who hear your voice, the more you actually have to pay to be heard.
On the right and the left, I don't doubt that many bloggers see themselves as an important corrective to the media's shortcomings. When progressive bloggers learn that a gay male prostitute was given access to the White House and presidential briefings without obtaining standard FBI clearance, we think it's newsworthy. When conservative bloggers learn that the mother of a fallen US soldier in Iraq is criticizing the waar policy, they think she needs to be be made not-newsworthy. (Huh, I'd never thought about how we tend to fight for more information while the righties fight for less...)
I think that blogs are doing just what they should be-- enabling people to organize for causes they support (on whichever side of the political fence), disseminate information (or regrettably, disinformation), and work as a consumer voice that reminds the mainstream media that there are a whole lot of us out here who don't give a damn about the missing white girl du jour when the nation is teetering on the brink of becoming a corporatist theocracy. Christo-nomics, perhaps?
posted by Matt Sandwich | 12:43 PM
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