I think blogging for political purposes/civic discourse can be useful. Ideally, it is the best avenue for a PR campaign. The drawback is that, like in the Wal-Mart example, bloggers are also going to figure out who is behind the information, if it is not a corporate blog. When I read the Wal-Mart article, the first thought I had was, "Well, there goes the grass roots movement of blogging."
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Blogs Used for Political Purposes and/or Civic Discourses
I think blogging is opening an even bigger conversation in politics. We've talked about the wide community discourse blogs create and how blogs can produce information faster than corporate media and this contributes to the political conversation. The Barton piece discusses blogs as a public sphere for rational-critical debate and how the public sphere has the precondition to "engage in discussions critical of the ruling institution." It's almost a perfect definition of blogging terms of political purposes/civic discourse. Blogging in politics gives people a great outlet to show their passion for issues and candidates, where they find others like themselves and others not like themselves to engage in some healthy debate.
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4 comments:
Hey Meg,
When I read the Walmart piece, I not only thought like you did "there goes the grassroots movement" but what was even more troubling was "there goes the exploitation of the grassroots movement."
I felt that what Walmart was doing was exploiting the public's belief that a blog is in fact grassroots.
The WalMart thing bugged me too. It just feels wrong, I'm not sure if it is.
What you said about blogging giving voice to issues and interests made me start to think of blogs as sort of cyber-townhall meetings. At those there is often an agenda and someone is setting the course, but at least in theory everyone has access to the campaign and the candidate.
Is that the draw for political blogs, making us feel a part of the action?
I think it is a big part of the draw of political blogs...people feel as though they get there say. But I also feel as though political blogs are for a certain audience. Maybe there is a draw in visitors during this election year, but maybe not on another year. It would be interesting to see some numbers.
i think there is always the potential for gross misuse of available mediums. the walmart piece was a perfect example of this. i think we need to be good critical thinkers and not believe everything that is on the internet especially from a giant corporation like walmart. look at our distrust of youngtrigg's claim that he knew nothing of palin's nomination, i would feel that same sort of distrust if i was reading any sort of blog about a controversial topic. we can't blame walmart for trying, everyone is trying to use the most accessible, most effective means of communicating with their audience.
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