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To boldly go where no blogger has gone before
By Lindsey | April 9, 2008
Here’s a book review I wrote a couple weeks ago about a book on blogging. See, I have been writing something!
To boldly go where no blogger has gone before
By Lindsey Rivait, The Lance (University of Windsor)
WINDSOR (CUP) — The word “blog” and “bloggers” conjures images of overweight men in their late thirties on basement computers, typing away about the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica. What you may not know is that blogs are an essential source for political information and are being incorporated into the campaigns of presidential hopefuls for the 2008 election.
David D. Perlmutter, a professor at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas, examines blogs, their history, and what they mean to politics in his latest book, Blogwars.
Perlmutter dedicates his book “To bloggers, who boldly go where many of us could only dream of going before.” Indeed, this medium allows the writer to present facts as well as their own opinions in a friendly and casual writing style.
Political candidates themselves are delving into the world of blogging and new technology — from Barack Obama’s Facebook friends count hitting the one-million mark and Hillary Rodham Clinton launching the “Let’s Chat” campaign on her website, to John McCain announcing his candidacy on the Late Show with David Letterman. Blogwars also examines how Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign used blogs to reach his audience and garner support and funds. While blogs are gaining more and more popularity every day (to the tune of one new blog created per second according to blog tracker Technorati), Perlmutter claims that television is still the number-one media outlet in political debates.
Perlmutter provides an introduction to blogs — what they are, what they cover, and who is blogging. Blogwars is written in a straight-forward, easy-to-understand language. It does well to explain most technological jargon, but it may still be lost on a less Internet-savvy audience.
Blogs are not revolutionary in that the content is not radically new. The idea of spreading one’s opinion through a medium dates to Franklin Roosevelt’s radio fireside chats, and even further to ancient Greece and letter writing. Bloggers don’t just report on the issues; they collect facts and collate evidence for their readers. They are notorious for scouring the Web for anything newsworthy and act as correspondents, going to places we cannot.
There is a high level of interactivity on blogs, changing the relationship between writers and readers. Blogs have placed more importance on the role of the audience as creators, moving from the concept of large industries creating the mass media to the individual production of mass-media products — all thanks to the Internet. Bloggers and blog readers can comment on posts, encourage discussion, link to other blogs, and draw attention to comments and discussions in specific posts. Blogs are unique in that they create endless webs of information. A dialogue sprouts between writers and readers instantaneously in a way that no other medium has been able to provide.
New things are always happening in the blogging world, making it difficult to keep up with. This is especially notable for a book that took its author three years to finish. Perlmutter goes on to explore vlogs, or video blogs. What this newer medium will bring forth to the political sphere, however, has yet to be seen. But the new media won’t stop there. Technology is ever-changing and available for us to take advantage of.
Perlmutter wraps up by stating, “Blogging, thus, is a means, not an end, to a new political culture, but its possibilities, perils, and promises are so great that all of us… should become part of the conversation.” Blogging isn’t everything, but it sure is a stepping stone in the political world to voice opinions and be heard.
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