Monday, October 06, 2008

Blogs bad for democracy?

Are blogs bad for democracy?

They are according to Kate Maltby.

She recounts an experience

Recently, I was mentioned on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish. My heart leapt - I'm just one of many student bloggers, banging away at a keyboard and trying to kid myself that someone was reading. Until suddenly, the number of visitors leapt by 4000%, random bloggers started linking to my post and I realized that I had an exceptional opportunity to get myself noticed by potential media employers.


But for her rather than making her more linked to the world

On the contrary. It made me even more isolated.


I thought about this.Rubbish surely for as your blog is read by more and more people your views are surely influencing more and more people.

A typical blog post involves linking to another, often more widely read, writer's post or news article. The blogger quotes a chunk, explains why its of interest, and then gives a little personal spin on the ideas in question. Sure, at times bloggers will take issue with their ideological opponents and real right-left debates will happen across the blogosphere. But blogging is a very cheap medium, and therefore it's typically the realm of people who are trying to get noticed enough to jump start careers in more solidly funded media.


Yep can agree with that to a certain extent.But also for Kate,

the deeply personal nature of blogs, in combination with the echo chamber effect, has fueled the rise of single issue campaigning. To be engaging to readers, a blog has to be constantly updated and have a clearly distinct theme, because the mystique of blogging is that it allegedly provides for personal expression. A blog is a news digest, filtered according to personal taste, and to get the exact collection of news summaries that are relevant to my lifestyle,

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