According to a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor: "Blogs still rank well behind traditional television, radio, and newspaper outlets as a source of news, but they are gaining ground rapidly. The liberal blog Daily Kos attracted nearly 4.8 million visitors this July, compared with 3.4 million in January, according to Nielsen//NetRatings…"
The population of Iowa is 2,926,324.
The population of New Hampshire is 1,235,786.
Their total population is, thus: 4,162,110.
That means Daily Kos had more "residents" in July than the two "first in the nation" states for the presidential nomination race. Of course, it is apples and ipods to compares a state with a website, but the numbers do point out the increasing locii of geopolitical power and attention that are blogs. One big difference: to meet everyone in Iowa, you have to travel all over Iowa. To get seen by everyone in Daily Kos land a single headlining post is enough.
Originally posted November 7, 2005 at PolicyByBlog
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The blog is possible through the convergence of many new technologies: revolutions in human communication that were both tipping points (of ideas) and points of the tip (of new things). In parallel, more than half a millennium ago (1452-1454/55), Johann Gutenberg printed his two-volume, 1,282-page, 42-line Bible in Mainz. He produced 180 copies (150 on paper and, it is believed, 30 on parchment), using about 20 assistants in the process. His innovations included a screw press (a converted wine press) and moveable type with individual elements (periods, letters, upper- and lower-case letters).
Interestingly, the small number of Bibles hardly represented a "mass" communication, but one of Gutenberg's follow-up projects did. To raise money to pay for a crusade against Muslim Turks, the Roman Catholic Church contracted with Gutenberg to print thousands of Letters of Indulgence--certificates the Catholic faithful could buy for cash, absolving them of their sins. The practice was among the chief complaints of a young German monk named Martin...
Natasha Celine of Pacific Views (and a veteran blogger of the "sleepless summer" of Howard Dean) writes to me:
The idea of Hillary Clinton running for president really sounded good to me right after her 2000 campaign, but she killed my enthusiasm with her votes and public statements. She's wandered between Republican apologist, warmonger, 'moral' crusader and ardent supporter of women's rights. Or maybe healthcare. As if the last things should make up for all the rest of it, as if Democratic politicians haven't figured out that supporting women's rights and better health care is literally the least they can do. A floor, if you will, as opposed to a ceiling. It would be putting it mildly to say that I'm disinterested in her candidacy.
See her entire letter in DOCUMENTS section in left sidebar.
Also: "Sonoma" comments on Bob Kunst's open letter to Hillary Clinton: "No one- and I mean no one- despises the Bushites GOP more than I. But if HC...
Anyone can start up a blog claiming to be anyone else: sometimes the "identity theft" is satirical and most readers will catch on. "Harriet Miers" blog lampooned (in the first person) the aborted Supreme Court nominee; some Virginia wags started a political blog titled "Not Larry Sabato" in reference to the massively-quoted University of Virginia political science professor. The "Roger Ailes" of the blog of the same name is not the president and CEO of Fox News and the blogger tells us so, in this manner: "Not affiliated with Fox News Channel or any other houses of ill-repute."
Less identity theft than personal assault are blogs dedicated to attacking the person in the title or address. The bloggers at SantorumExposed.com focus their ire on Pennsylvania republican Senator Rick Santorum. Rockford Illinois-based "Ellis Wyatt" (itself a pseudonym) talks about many subjects at Dump Dick Durbin but the democratic senator is a special target of negative criticism. (more…)...
Editor & Publisher just put up an op-ed of mine* about the media lessons of the twin disasters at the Sago mine in West Virginia. Again, I think what I say here applies to all forms of media.
MINE RESCUE LESSON: JUST SAY 'DON'T KNOW'
By David D. Perlmutter/Editor&Publisher.com (January 05, 2006)
In the wake of the Sago mine disaster, perhaps a new category of Pulitzer Prize should be created to honor the journalists or news managers who caution that a story is not ready for prime time or publication. We must re-evaluate how journalism produces and delivers the "first draft of history."
"Journalism," claimed former Washington Post publisher Philip Graham, "is the first draft of history." But when I set my students, as an exercise, to factually verify initial media reports of major news events they are shocked. From the Tiananmen uprisings and government crackdown to the flooding of New Orleans, they find the same sad tale. The first draft is full of...
UPDATED: 01/09/06
Big media are not as big as we need them to be. A thousand reporters herd to the Michael Jackson trial, but not enough seek out places where really important news is breaking. The number of fulltime foreign correspondents working for so called "major networks" and newspapers has decreased in recent years [1] as has the amount of of money and resources mainstream media spends on foreign newsgathering. [2] Tom Fenton, the veteran foreign correspondent for The Baltimore Sun and CBS News just noted: "American news organizations [have] so depleted the ranks of hard news reporters over the years that they suddenly had to send out whatever lifestyle, fashion, and gossip types they could muster on a moment's notice." [3]
The mainstream reporter, as well, often stays in capitals and major cities. Bloggers, however, can specialize, look at nooks and crannies big media don't care or don't know about, or don't have any focus on.
Take Bird Flu: Those two words are getting major big media coverage and government attention.
Here...
[UPDATED]
Frank Athens of the Washington Posts makes an accusation that one hears often cast against blogging:
"[The most] troubling trait of the Internet [is that] Rather than opening minds, it can close them, thanks to echo-chamber Web sites and blogs. We like to read Web sites and blogs that we agree with and that reinforce our opinions. Aside from the few of you who practice "know your enemy" browsing, how many of you liberals read http://www.nationalreview.com/? How many of you conservatives frequent http://www.thenation.com/?
His implication is that blog consumption is ideologically self-referential: liberals read Daily Kos; conservatives read powerlineblog and so on. And never the twain do meet. (See comment by Jeff Jarvis).
Is this true?
First, Athens' unstated premise is that "neutral platforms" like, say the Washington Post, are superior content providers because they offer an internal marketplace of different, competing ideas, each given equal weight. Well, I'm not sure how many people, left or right, truly believe that the Washington Post, or any...
If one paid attention only to the most sensational postings and most acerbic bloggers, it would be easy to stereotype blogs as unleashing, from the pits of Mordor, an army of frothing, torch-wielding hobgoblins who will propel America toward a Balkan tragedy. But many blogs are political educators of the best kind: teaching a new generation of people concerned about and involved in democracy and activated to serve their country and their community.
One such example is Watchblog, which describes itself as "a multiple-editor weblog broken up into three major political affiliations, each with its own blog: the Democrats, the Republicans and the Third Party (covering everything outside the two major parties." The creators of the blog explain, "Let's face it, politics is confusing. Sometimes it's difficult to know who to believe, who to listen to and who to support. We're here to help. Posting on a regular basis are editors representing each major party. Stay informed."
Each of the two major parties...
UPDATED
Earlier I discussed the issue of whether bloggers wore political blinders, that is they tended to only read, quote and trust other blogs of the same political feather. By bloggers, of course, we mean both people who edit blogs, that is have their own blog and the greater number of people who read and/or comment within blogs. I argued that while this stereotype was in part true, based on my studies of my students, it was not a black and white world, of, say, conservative blogs and blog editors and readers never reading Daily Kos or MYDD.
One research study on this question--which did not look at blog readers but blogs themselves--reinforces the view that partisan readership is a tendency not a chasm.
A study by Lada Adamic (of HP Labs) & Natalie Glance (of Intelliseek) of posts and blogrolls of "A-List" liberal and conservative blogs between the period of August 29, 2004 and November 15, 2004 found that partisan bloggers tended...
A loose association of "center-right bloggers" recently jointly published, in all their blogs, an "appeal" about the House Republican leadership contest in reaction to the recent lobbying scandals. They write, in part:
We are bloggers with boatloads of opinions, and none of us come close to agreeing with any other one of us all of the time. But we do agree on this: The new leadership in the House of Representatives needs to be thoroughly and transparently free of the taint of the Jack Abramoff scandals, and beyond that, of undue influence of K Street.
We are not naive about lobbying, and we know it can and has in fact advanced crucial issues and has often served to inform rather than simply influence Members.
Among the signators are such well-known bloggers as John Hinderaker of powerlineblog, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, Hugh Hewitt, Ed Morrissey of CaptainsQuarters, Michelle Malkin, Mike Krempasky of RedState.org, and Bruce Carroll of GayPatriot.
There are many lonely blogs out there,...