An interesting piece this week in the Colorado Springs Gazette commented on what I call The Great Opening: the effect of improved communications, especially the Internet and blogs, to reduce the insularity of our political discourse.
In 2004, the Democratic National Convention offered press credentials to about 30 bloggers.Back then, even though the blogosphere was already burgeoning, they were treated as a sideshow. News coverage looked at these online commentators like zoo animals – showing them furiously typing away in corners of the convention hall.
This time around, blogs have come of age and the Democrats are bending over backward to open the doors of Denver’s Pepsi Center to bloggers for the Aug. 25-28 event. More than 120 blogs will be represented at the convention.
So, if CNN or the New York Times (or, say it ain’t so, The Gazette) isn’t providing the convention coverage you’re looking for, you could try Beliefnet, a national, nonpartisan religion and spirituality Web site, or Disaboom, a site focused on the interests and issues of disabled people, or My Left Nutmeg, a New Hampshire political blog. Or Blue Mass Group, or Crooks and Liars, or a hundred other sites.
Is my thesis accurate? Do you think that the internet in general and blogs in particular are opening up politics, or is this just the political equivalent of Olympics commentary: alternately interesting and enervating, but in no way determinative of results on the field of play. (The excellent My Left Nutmeg, incidentally, of course, is from CT not NH).
Discuss
3 Comments . Leave a comment below.For the Conventions, I believe it's more like a political equivalent of the Olympics commentary. Mostly because if you can see it on tv, it's like you're chatting about it with a sports blog.
But where internet and blogging has made a huge difference is in the daily grind of keeping the media honest. It's allowed us to see more than the tv propaganda.
Sure we have blogs duking it out--or bloggers duking it out. But things like the Libby trial were covered better on the blogs. Things like the hearings against Bush (in the basement room) were covered on the blogs.
The corporate media has hidden everything they can. But blogs push the media and the politicians to tell the truth.
I think the Internet/blogs are like regular media -- about 99% of it (like my blog) is useless vanity crap. About 1% contains new ideas, information, or analysis worth the time to write it.
Where the Internet and blogs help is that when the pool is broadened so much more, you have many, many more chances to get that 1-in-100 shot. And thus far, a shaky meritocracy has developed whereby people and ideas that produce often end up working their way up to widespread attention.
my first reaction was wait a minute, My Left Nutmeg, is a Connecticut blog. Guess all those New England states just sort of mush together for someone from the western side of the country.
As for the impact of blogs, I think it's too early to assess yet. It could go either way. It may even be that it varies state by state based on the quality of the state-level blogs.
« Blue Mass Group Front Page
Sun 26 May 3:44 AM