Blogs
Can blogs affect politics and society?
As a lead-up to mesh in May, the Gang of Five — that is me, Rob Hyndman, Mark Evans, Mike McDerment and Stuart “call me Chairman Mao” MacDonald — have been talking a lot (not surprisingly) about the themes we want to look at, and crawling the blogosphere for evidence of how Web 2.0 and blogs are — or aren’t — affecting media, marketing, business and society/politics.
We decided to look at that last one in part because of the effect that bloggers had on the coverage of the Iraq war, on the election of George Bush and even on events such as the Jayson Blair affair at the New York Times — but also because of the effect that bloggers like Michael Geist and Ed “Captain’s Quarters” Morrissey and Joey DeVilla had on the Canadian election, when they helped destabilize and possibly derail the candidacy of Sarmite Bulte, the record labels’ best friend.
But we want to talk about more than that during the panels on the Web and politics/society at mesh in May. Could blogs and other Web-based technologies help non-profit groups and disadvantaged groups gain more of a voice, and thus help affect policy? And even broader than that, what are the implications of “open source” tools such as Wikipedia.org on human society — do they make it better or just reflect the worst elements of human nature? Mark wonders what Jane Jacobs could have done with a blog, and Rob asks whether they turn the blogosphere into an echo chamber. Stuart has some thoughts as well.
There’s plenty of material there for an entire conference, let alone a few panels and keynotes. Hopefully we’ll be able to pack enough of it into the time we have, and get plenty of participation and comments from attendees. If you have any thoughts or links, you can post them here or head over to the mesh wiki and throw them onto a page, or tag them with our del.icio.us links (described at the wiki).
Discussion
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Bah, humbug. Is there anyone there who isn’t going to say “Blogs are just the bestest most disruptorious democratic people’s pamphleteering revolution. Down with the MSM! Advantage bogosphere!”?
I guess we’ll find out, Seth. Maybe you should come and say that. Might get some discussion going.
Mathew
[…] Update: the mesh guys are busy writing about this as well. Stuart posts on chickens in pots here, Mark wonders here about a Jane Jacobs blog, and Mathew chimes in here. Related Posts […]
What If Jane Jacobs Had a Blog?
Earlier this week, Canada lost a true hero when urban activist/writer Jane Jacobs died at the age of 89. Since she moved to Canada in 1969, Jacobs had been a major force in shaping Toronto’s development - providing city hall with a vision of what the…
Thanks for the offer, but what would be the point? Not to mention I live in the US. Anyway, here’s an interesting link I’ve remembered on the topic, with particular application to Canada:
Respectful of Otters
(see Friday, April 08, 2005 entry)
Thanks for the link, Seth. That’s quite the post from Respectful of Otters — and it has a point. But is it that surprising that blogs would be used by one party or another to try and influence or spin a story? Seems to me it happened a lot during your elections and the Banana Boat controversy or whatever it was.
In a way, that illustrates how blogs are becoming more a part of the political infrastructure, which is exactly the kind of thing we want to talk about at mesh — not how blogs are some kind of altruistic, lily-white voice of the people, but how they become part of the conversation… for better or worse.
Mathew
An e-Chicken in Every Pot.com
One of the things we will be exploring at mesh is the impact that social media and the interaction that web 2.0 is enabling is having on politics and society.
In the US, for instance, political blogs have almost become mainstream, with some sporting weekly reach and unique visitors numbers which exceed all but a handful of major newspapers. The Huffington Post, Captain’s Quarters…the list goes on and on, and the influence grows.
Not to mention the role that the web has played…
While it’s probably not controversial to believe that blogs influence politics and society, it may be hard to prove it objectively. An easier task is to show how blogs can influence other blogs and Web based communities. Akshay Java has been modeling influence in blog communities and has a technical report on it: Modeling the Spread of Influence on the Blogosphere. I think the work can be extended to document the spred of information and ideas from blogs to MSM. That’s a bit closer to showing that blogs affect society.
Thanks for the comment, Tim. That’s an interesting paper — thanks for pointing it out. My own pet theory is that blogs have effectively just become part of the ecosystem that the mainstream media relies on for ideas about what is really going on in the world.
Mathew
Proving that blogs affect society
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I generally like to watch the Keith Obermann show on the US MS/NBC cable channel. It’s a news show, I guess. One thing that annoys me about it, though, is that the last half hour seems to mostly be devoted to stories that bounced around on the internet that same day. So I think that the show has a bunch of young ‘reporters” whose beat is to sit in a windowless room and surf the web. Talk about outsourcing!
Original post:Can blogs affect politics and society? by at Google Blog Search: web based conference
I work for a nonprofit tech project called Net Squared: Remixing the Web for Social Change and we’ve got a list of nonprofit blogging case studies at http://netsquared.org/casestudy/blogging
Thought that might be of interest! Good luck on your presentation.
When the market is billions of people (who read the internet), there is literally an audience for every cause. Understanding the impact of this and its effects on society are what we will be dealing with at mesh.Mathew, Stuart, Rob and mesh are starting to tackle the topic and share some insight. Come help us round and the conversation and join us at mesh.
There are more examples than most traditional leaders in media, journalism, politics and government, and business can shake their fingers at, and various initiatives and communities (of interest, activism and innovation) are connecting and sprouting all over the Web, all around the world. And then of course there’s that pesky emerging principle of *wirearchy*, as a supplement to traiditonal hierarchy … but I would say that, wouldn’t I ? ;-)
I assume you’re aware of the recent Economist survey on New Media, which is asking the question also as to whether blogs, wikis, vlogs, social software etc. are fundamentally changing (or will) business and society.
http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6794156
Can blogs affect politics and society?
Yes, thanks Jon. A fascinating issue from the Economist — not a bad
overview. I wrote a post on it when it came out the other day.
And thanks for the comments.
Mathew
[…] Spurred on by Matthew Ingram’s post on blogs affecting politics (and society), I’m wondering to what extent local (Northern Irish) bloggers can challenge traditional preconceptions in our wider society. […]
s sake, are far out of that loop, despite superficial attempts to look like they aren’t. Personally, I think unless that changes, they will have their communal butts handed to them online within two years. Another organizer,Mathew Ingram, seems to disagree with his colleague. We decided to look at that last one in part because of the effect that bloggers had on the coverage of the Iraq war, on the election of George Bush and even on events such as the Jayson Blair affair at the New
‘Can blogs affect politics and society?’
blogs affecting politics (and society)
they will have their communal butts handed to them online within two years. In any event, politics and society is up for discussion at mesh. I have a post up on the mesh blog, and Rob Hyndman who is running that stream has some thoughts here. Mark andMathew also chime in. Mike just added a nice post about how his Dad is prime for taking his political thoughts online. Hope to continue the conversation with you at mesh. Tags: mesh06tags, politics, web2.0
[…] Courtesy of Umair at Bubblegeneration.com, I found something called Wikiocracy, which appears to be an attempt to apply the “open-source information” principles of Wikipedia to the various laws and statutes that form our society (or in this case, U.S. society), including the Constitution. This is an idea that I find kind of intriguing, especially since we are looking at how Web 2.0 affects politics and society as part of our mesh conference on May 15th and 16th. I wrote a bit about that here. […]
[…] When the market is billions of people (who read the internet), there is literally an audience for every cause. Understanding the impact of this and its effects on society are what we will be dealing with at mesh. Mathew, Stuart, Rob and mesh are starting to tackle the topic and share some insight. Come help us round and the conversation and join us at mesh. […]
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[…] Tonight on The Chris Pirillo Show, we’re joined by author, Eric Sink, talking about his new book, Eric Sink on the Business of Software. Eric led the team at Spyglass that developed the original version of the browser now know as Internet Explorer and went on to found SourceGear. We’re giving away three copies of the book, so be sure to tune in. Later on the show we’ll hear from Rob Hyndman and Stuart MacDonald about the upcoming mesh conference as well as their take on the role blogs play in influencing politics and society. […]
[…] Blogs affect politics and society […]