Thinking out loud:
Blogs are a major threat to the establishment. They're like the new printing press. It used to be that the average person couldn't really contribute to public political dialog, until the printing press drastically reduced the cost of reaching lots of people. The printed word was power for a long time, until TV came along and everyone stopped reading and started getting all their information from TV. Highly concentrated wealth owns the broadcasting networks, and the average person can't really contribute. Now blogs come along and suddenly anyone with an email address can put their ideas out there. Good ideas draw an audience. Ideas different than those allowed on TV draw an audience. This is a threat, which is why mainstream media figures are so derisive towards bloggers.
So blogs are a weapon in the war of ideas, which is one reason I'd urge everyone to participate. Read blogs. Comment on blogs. Make your own. But an open question is whether the urge to sit in front of a computer and read or write a blog is taking away from the urge to go smash shit up in the streets.
2 comments:
I'm reading this book Here Comes Everybody by Shirky that talks about this and other forms of the new social media. As a technologist he generally skews optimistic, but still makes some interesting points throughout.
something about this mainstream media derisive towards bloggers bit is very familiar in a "i've got some vague memory of an awesome metaphor" kind of way.
oh well.
we've discussed before how households have now become islands because of technology. and i've lamented that this generation doesn't seem to rally in the streets like their parents. but to our credit, we're using technology to "get together" in other ways.
it is an uprising.
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