Do Weblogs = Communication?
Bulletin boards, a good way to communicate or not? With the growing popularity of the Internet, its only a matter of time before things such as weblogs take off. It becomes another channel for the people to state their opinions. It becomes a way for people to learn more about the issues and to discuss them.
However, the concern I have is the fact that these people are now just screen names and alias’ rather than actually people who can communicate face- to- face. All sorts of people can and do post on political blogs. People are not as afraid of being confrontational when no one has to see their face or know their identity. You are just another anonymous source on the internet. No one can find you unless you want to be found. No one can challenge you unless you want to be challenged. I am hard press to call this communication. Communication involves sending and receiving messages. There is nothing to say this is happening here. Granted, there are responses to what is posted and there might be some elements of interaction, but there is no listening, there is little agreement, and there is little convincing of an opposing side. I think back to the Rogerian Arguments and I see the problems that were being addressed there coming out all too clearly in the Political Bulletin Board. There is judgment and defensiveness instead of listening. Instead of addressing important issues and thinking of ways to improve them together, there is complaining and ridicule and gossip. I don’t think the appeal of discussion board has as much to do with the sense of community as it does an easy access to state your opinion and argue with someone else’s opinion. I don’t see anyone trying to solve the problems today. It does nothing for communication in politics.
Now, granted, I realize that each bulletin board has some type of mediator who decides what should be posted and what should not be posted. As seen by the two discussion boards brought up in class, Talking Points Memo is put on by John Micah Marshall and Daily Kos is put on by someone with the alias Kos. Marshall has put his name and picture out there for people to see. That is admirable because he is taking some sort of responsibility for what is posted by showing his face, it the face of who to blame for those who find his weblog to be controversial and who is praised for his contributions to politics.
One thing I did notice was that most of the responses were posted on a website different than the political blog. What the blog provide was the link to a different website to where you could read more on the situation and post a response. The political blogs themselves seemed very exclusive to me, which has a lot to do with the moderator and his choices. A posting here made by a Paul Kiel provides a link to another discussion board. Here is where you can find numerous responses to the ad with the coffin draped flags ( http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/ )which raised a lot of controversy. However, there are none on the original blog, Talking Points Memo. Now granted, this could be unique to just this blog but it does show a lot about that particular website moderator. Maybe he doesn’t want a public response to each posting in order to maintain his exclusiveness. Or maybe Paul Kiel is a member of many different websites and put his article wherever he wanted.
Another thing that stood out to me in these blogs is the amount of postings these sites get everyday and even every hour, even though the majority of TPM were put on by Marshall himself. Some might be in response to something posted previously but if you are not on top on your web postings game, you will be easy over looked. Another reason why this is not communication. The topics move to swiftly and to rapidly for anything to be accomplished.
However, it was interesting to see the differences between political blogs. Daily Kos consisted of much lengthier posting than Talking Points Memo, they are both weblogs but both extremely different.
Therefore, these weblogs can not be considered communication. It is merely another outlet for people to complain and harp over the issues or gossip over the latest political news. But I do believe that bulletin boards have great potential in politics if their focus could be slightly redirected towards resolution and listening to what each other are saying. Maybe then, people will take more of an interest in politics.
However, the concern I have is the fact that these people are now just screen names and alias’ rather than actually people who can communicate face- to- face. All sorts of people can and do post on political blogs. People are not as afraid of being confrontational when no one has to see their face or know their identity. You are just another anonymous source on the internet. No one can find you unless you want to be found. No one can challenge you unless you want to be challenged. I am hard press to call this communication. Communication involves sending and receiving messages. There is nothing to say this is happening here. Granted, there are responses to what is posted and there might be some elements of interaction, but there is no listening, there is little agreement, and there is little convincing of an opposing side. I think back to the Rogerian Arguments and I see the problems that were being addressed there coming out all too clearly in the Political Bulletin Board. There is judgment and defensiveness instead of listening. Instead of addressing important issues and thinking of ways to improve them together, there is complaining and ridicule and gossip. I don’t think the appeal of discussion board has as much to do with the sense of community as it does an easy access to state your opinion and argue with someone else’s opinion. I don’t see anyone trying to solve the problems today. It does nothing for communication in politics.
Now, granted, I realize that each bulletin board has some type of mediator who decides what should be posted and what should not be posted. As seen by the two discussion boards brought up in class, Talking Points Memo is put on by John Micah Marshall and Daily Kos is put on by someone with the alias Kos. Marshall has put his name and picture out there for people to see. That is admirable because he is taking some sort of responsibility for what is posted by showing his face, it the face of who to blame for those who find his weblog to be controversial and who is praised for his contributions to politics.
One thing I did notice was that most of the responses were posted on a website different than the political blog. What the blog provide was the link to a different website to where you could read more on the situation and post a response. The political blogs themselves seemed very exclusive to me, which has a lot to do with the moderator and his choices. A posting here made by a Paul Kiel provides a link to another discussion board. Here is where you can find numerous responses to the ad with the coffin draped flags ( http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/ )which raised a lot of controversy. However, there are none on the original blog, Talking Points Memo. Now granted, this could be unique to just this blog but it does show a lot about that particular website moderator. Maybe he doesn’t want a public response to each posting in order to maintain his exclusiveness. Or maybe Paul Kiel is a member of many different websites and put his article wherever he wanted.
Another thing that stood out to me in these blogs is the amount of postings these sites get everyday and even every hour, even though the majority of TPM were put on by Marshall himself. Some might be in response to something posted previously but if you are not on top on your web postings game, you will be easy over looked. Another reason why this is not communication. The topics move to swiftly and to rapidly for anything to be accomplished.
However, it was interesting to see the differences between political blogs. Daily Kos consisted of much lengthier posting than Talking Points Memo, they are both weblogs but both extremely different.
Therefore, these weblogs can not be considered communication. It is merely another outlet for people to complain and harp over the issues or gossip over the latest political news. But I do believe that bulletin boards have great potential in politics if their focus could be slightly redirected towards resolution and listening to what each other are saying. Maybe then, people will take more of an interest in politics.
posted by Lori | 7:28 PM
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