Daily Kos: How influential are blogs?

[RSchewe]

Check it out. It is a good perspective on the role of blogs on a larger scale.

Here is an excerpt from the post that he cites Peter Daou, formerly John Kerry's top netroots guy:

The triangle construct also explains rightwing bloggers' relentless attacks on the "MSM" and on anyone who contends that the media is conservative. In a nation dominated by shrill rightwing voices, with all branches of government in the hands of Republicans, and an ineffectual press corps, the "liberal media" myth is so absurd that it requires no rebuttal. But the right desperately needs to keep the media from doing what they did in the aftermath of Katrina: tell the unvarnished truth. They need to block the left from building the kind of triangle that Katrina generated, where outspoken left-leaning bloggers are joined by leading Democrats and reporters who have no choice but to describe the catastrophic results of Bush's dismal leadership. The result in Katrina's case is a major political crisis and a dramatic shift in public perceptions, a body blow to the long-standing conventional wisdom of Bush as a "resolute leader" and a protector.

Source: Daily Kos - How influential are blogs? - http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/19/124141/114

[glitch]

1. For some reason conservatives think the truth is liberal.

Perhaps they are right :P

edit: don't you hate spotting a typo the instant you hit post?

[SteppingRazor]

2. Far more important than blogs is the "leading Democrats" bit...

Reporters don't question the administration when the Demcorats don't. When the Bush admin. says there are WMDs in Iraq, and the Democrats just greenlight the war, the press goes along for the ride.
When Democratic politicians speak out, it gives the press something to report, without having to actually do the extra work and find out for themselves the truth about WMDs (to continue the previous example) -- it'd be nice if they did the investigation themselves, but investigative journalism is all but extinct, due to a whole host of factors, not the least of which is tight budget constraints at modern newspapers.
If you want opposition in this country to the Bushes, it starts with a real opposition party. Blogs are all well and good, but Democrats with a proper set of balls is the main ingredient.

[RSchewe]

3. I agree, The point is that blogs can be a motivator in a sense n/t

[SteppingRazor]

4. very true. Blogs offer some sort of counterpoint...

very important, especially when no one else will offer a counterpoint to the usual spin. In that sense, blogs are filling the niche that should be filled by elected Democrats.

[henslee]

5. Once an idea is thought it cannot be unthought.

And nothing rings truer than the truth. And yes, shit floats. This is why blogs rule. Ideas are floated.

[bryant69]

6. Non-influential

Frankly the Blogs are largely people who think alike talking to themselves.

That doesn't mean that individual bloggists might not gain influence.

Consider Democratic Underground as a parallel. Nobody would argue that being a member of Democratic Underground grants one any sort of influence. On the other hand through the sharpening power of debate and discussion a Democratic Undergrounder who does gain influence might be better able to exert it.

Maybe - could also be that I'm talking out of my behindus.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

8. I think you're right.

Anyone who comes to these boards and blogs knows what they're in for, and they're not casual observers.

[1932]

10. I agree to a degree. However, things are never static.

The more people talk about them, the more they grow. There will come a tipping point when they reach beyond the converted.

A lot of Democrats are making great efforts to use the medium to increase the visibilty of non-corporate points of view.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

11. To your point of non-corporate POVs...

I agree, but I think it only serves to solidify opinions of those already pre-disposed to believe rather than converting those who would not agree or are not politically motivated enough to form an opinion in the first place. The problem is that finding web sites and reading them takes effort, whereas flipping on a television, or even being in the lobby of a building that already has it on, does not take any effort at all.

[1932]

13. I think it's growing. Also, people in the media read the blogs

and consciously or unconsciously have to least deal with the perspectives raised, even if they're not reproducing those perspectives.

I think today, the blogs have maybe a 1% influence on the public discourse. That's up from 0.000001% two years ago. I bet it goes up to 5% in a year, and maybe 25% by 2008. A 25% influence in a media environment that only manages to split American opinion down the middle with 99% control of the message is nothing to turn your nose up at.

[Old and In the Way]

7. Pete used to post here.....

I do think that blogs have become the primary outlet for truth...we sure as hell don't get much of that in the MSM.

[1932]

9. This reminds me of a point Amartya Sen makes in Development as Freedom

Sen points out that no country that is a democracy had ever suffered a famine. Today, the countries at the top of the tables are Sudan and North Korea, which are both dictatorships. Many countries, like India, Zimbabwe and others, suffered famines immediately preceding the end of the colonial era, but never again after becoming democracies.

Sen says that this is possible because dictators and colonial governments never suffer as their populations do, and it's also because they have to respond to the wishes of the public and to the criticism of a free press.

When I read that, it struck me just how important it is not just to the cultural and political life of a country to have a free, responsible press. It's important to the very lives of a country's citizens for the government to believe that their missteps would be criticized by the press.

Today the press is either misleading people about what it means to be liberal when the liberals are in charge (in Germany and Norway they say that conservatives are the growth parties and liberals are the stagnation parties) or, where the conservatives are in office, they're not telling the truth. And what is the consequence of that? Well, the government thinks it can get away with murder.

The corporate press really needs to recognize that there's such a think as accomplice liability.

[Karenina]

12. When there is no ACCOUNTABILITY...

One cannot convince a man to acknowledge/understand a thing that his salary requires he NOT acknowledge/understand.

[txaslftist]

14. Oh My Gawd ... Rush Limbaugh was actually right (sort of)

I sometimes am forced by circumstances to listen to the pillboy, and last Friday he was giving his take on "Blogosphere vs. Beltway" and the Robert's nomination hearing.

His take was essentially this: The Dems on the Judiciary Committee were being forced to ask "silly leftist questions" by the Bloggers. His reasoning was that since the Right successfully destroyed the Unions' ability to contribute to the Democratic Party, they had to raise money from the blogs. Because the blogs have the money, they have the influence, and the candidates were afraid to offend the bloggers by refusing to challenge the naz ... er ...nominee.

He therefore blames what he termed a poor performance by the dems on the judiciary committee on the left-wing radicalism of the blogs.

The lesson for us lefty bloggers is obvious, also. We need to keep the pressure on our candidates to be more aggressive and less milquetoast. And if they don't (Mr. Lieberman), withold the money.

[RSchewe]

15. Read the original post from Peter Daou, the Kos post is just part of it

(...)

The Triangle
Looking at the political landscape, one proposition seems unambiguous: blog power on both the right and left is a function of the relationship of the netroots to the media and the political establishment. Forming a triangle of blogs, media, and the political establishment is an essential step in creating the kind of sea change we’ve seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Simply put, without the participation of the media and the political establishment, the netroots alone cannot generate the critical mass necessary to alter or create conventional wisdom. This is partly a factor of audience size, but it’s also a matter, frankly, of trust and legitimacy. Despite the astronomical growth of the netroots (see Bowers and Stoller for hard numbers), and the slow and steady encroachment of bloggers on the hallowed turf of Washington’s opinion-makers, it is still the Russerts and Broders and Gergens and Finemans, the WSJ, WaPo and NYT editorial pages, the cable nets, Stewart and Letterman and Leno, and senior elected officials, who play a pivotal role in shaping people’s political views. That is not to say that blogs can’t be the first to draw attention to an issue, as they often do, but the half-life of an online buzz can be measured in days and weeks, and even when a story has enough netroots momentum to float around for months, it will have little effect on the wider public discourse without the other sides of the triangle in place. Witness the Plame case, an obsession of left-leaning bloggers long before the media and the political establishment got on board and turned it into a political liability for Rove and Bush.

One possible objection to this ‘triangle’ formulation is the success of Paul Hackett. Bloggers who focus their attention on the local level - presumably believing that the netroots can change the course of local elections without the active participation of the media and political establishment - could say that Hackett’s success undermines my argument. I’ll say this in response: there’s no doubt that bloggers played a critical role, but it’s hard to deny that the triangle of netroots, media, and party establishment was in place for Hackett: the press ultimately did get involved, and the party establishment was part of the story by default since Hackett ran as a Democrat. You can argue, as bloggers like Bob Brigham did, that the party establishment didn’t play enough of a role, but that’s not to say it wasn’t part of the story.

The power of the triangle has been demonstrated again and again: Josh Marshall and social security, Steve Clemons and the Bolton nomination (the recess appointment was emblematic of Bolton’s defeat, not his victory), rightwing bloggers and Eason Jordan, rightwing bloggers and Dick Durbin, progressive bloggers and Jeff Gannon, and so on. In each of these cases, and to varying degrees, bloggers, the media, and senior elected officials played a role in pushing a story and influencing public perceptions. To understand what happens when the online community is on its own, look no further than electronic voting. The progressive netroots has been hammering away at this for years, but the media and the political establishment is largely mute. Traction = Zero. The conventional wisdom puts it squarely in the realm of conspiracy theories.

Should we conclude, then, that the inability of bloggers on the left and right to alter or create conventional wisdom means that they have negligible political clout? If the netroots can’t change CW without the mass media and the political establishment, and if the mass media and the political establishment can change CW without the netroots (which seems undeniable), then isn’t the blog world a relatively powerless echo chamber? The answer, of course, is no.

Bloggers can exert disproportionate pressure on the media and on politicians. Reporters, pundits, and politicians read blogs, and, more importantly, they care what bloggers say about them because they know other reporters, pundits, and politicians are reading the same blogs. It’s a virtuous circle for the netroots and a source of political power. The netroots can also bring the force of sheer numbers to bear on a non-compliant politician, reporter, or media outlet. Nobody wants a flood of complaints from thousands of angry activists. And further, bloggers can raise money, fact-check, and help break stories and/or keep them in circulation long enough for the media and political establishment to pick them up.

Consequently, bloggers, though unable to change conventional wisdom on their own, are able to use these proficiencies and resources to persuade the media and political establishment to join them in pushing a particular story or issue.

(...)

Source: Salon.com - The Daou Report - THE TRIANGLE: Limits of Blog Power - http://daoureport.salon.com/synopsis.aspx?synopsisId=147a2536-4de0-4716-9cc0-6c681e095ffd