The Washington Post has a story this morning worth a read, "Blogs Attack From Left as Democrats Reach for Center."
I found particularly interesting the references to Senator (and presumably Presdential-aspirant) Kerry's efforts to reach out to bloggers, such as his post this week on Daily Kos announcing his decision to try to filibuster the Alito nomination (and before that his comments on Iraq). My initial thought is that it is quite a savvy way by him of trying to establish his bona fides with the Democratic grass-roots base so as to try to peel away some of this constituency that otherwise seems naturally inclined Senator Clinton. The use of blogs in this manner, it seems to me, may be important in two ways. First, it allows for unusually well-targeted messaging to particular audiences at low cost, with minimal spillover to other audiences. Second, at least for the current moment in time, it provides a useful symbolic shorthand for politicians to define themselves with a particular "team"--i.e., simply by acknowledging and talking to these guys it provides a symbolic reaching out beyond traditional party establishments, in the same way that conservative politicians have used talk radio to cultivate a similar image.
Which prompts a final speculation--given the apparent inability of liberal talk radio (e.g., Air America) to get traction, I wonder if this has anything to do with the way that liberal and conservative blogs have evolved into having different structures. Think of it this way--if John Kerry were a conservative, he would have probably phoned-in a filibuster to Rush Limbaugh rather than blogging on Daily Kos. This leads me to wonder whether one explanation for the apparent difference between conservative and liberal blogs is that in some sense conservative blogs and talk radio work in tandem with each other, whereas liberal blogs essentially have to perform simultaneously both of the functions served by two distinct outlets by conservative media (talk radio and blogs). My impression is that liberal blogs tend to be in some sense larger and more centralized (such as Daily Kos), whereas conservative blogs tend to be more plentiful, smaller, and more decentralized in structure.
I'm raising the question of whether perhaps this is because because whereas blogs and talk radio essentially function as complementary technologies for conservatives, liberal blogs are essentially forced by the market into performing both the narrowcasting functions of, say, Powerline as well as the broadcasting functions of Limbaugh. Perhaps others have made this observation previously, or perhaps I'm just all wet, but Senator Kerry's blogging appearances on Daily Kos framed the question in a new way for me, so I thought I'd throw it out there. Most commentary I have seen tends to lump conservative talk radio and blogs together as essentially redundant "new" forms of new political technology, but its not obvious to me that is necessarily true.
If this is true, then it would predict that more liberal politicians might follow Sen. Kerry into the blogosphere, whereas we wouldn't necessarily expect to see conservative politicians reach out in exactly the same way.
So, on this analysis, what happens is that on the liberal side the community building function is carried by blogs with radio serving to amplify the message of the community, whereas on the conservative side the community building function was taken on by radio and blogs tend to serve as an amplifying echo chamber.
I'm perfectly aware that many visitors to this site (as well as Zwicki) disagree with the majority of the American people on the above issues...but calling those views "far left" can only be correct if the majority of Americans can be categorized as "far left."
I'm shocked by your claim that Markos Alberto Moulitsas Zúniga is a squishy moderate. You will be immediately reported to the Party. Accusations that the Leader is insufficiently radical are a serious matter.
He notes that a symbiosis arose between Liberal Left blogs and certain elements of the Democratic Party itself during the 2004 campaign. This seems parallel the role played by talk radio you note with Conservative Right blogs. The "community" nature of the Left Liberal sites Bowers credits for the huge lead they have over Conservative Right sites in traffic recently. Daily Kos is his case in point.
Of course, as Fleetwood Mac claims, No one falls into a simple set of labels. But there evidently are distinguishable, quantifiable, "topological" differences in the two genres of online citizen journalism now and the websites they tend to build and populate.
A filibuster is a tactic, not an ideology. Under Clinton, Republican senators used tactics to keep his nominees off he bench. The polls show that the majority of Americans disagree with Alito's views on many of the important issues of the day, so once again I don't see the point in the characterization of those who oppose his nomination as "far left."
"Far Left" isn't something Kossacks deny... it's a badge they wear with pride in order to gain respect in their forums.
And dk35, Markos will be shocked to find out he's not far left, so drop the pose. Don't believe me? Ask him.
Radio was used by the Republican and libertarian elements to break away from what's being reported in TV; blogs to take the fight even to smaller or more defined (i.e., "radical") segments, or to redefine segmentation overall.
(A case in point for this redefinition concept is that after years of conservative radio, Fox News springs up and at least doesn't ignore the so-called conservative and the libertarian side. Though Fox could be called pretty weak on that front, we at least now see some airing of the non-"established" point of view in TV.)
The easy, inexpensive mass market access that the internet makes possible has enabled even fringe ideas to get to enough eyes to find a market. It works the same way that web-based auction sites enable you to sell some horrible old knick-knack that you can't sell at your garage sale or anywhere around town.
So blogs make for an excellent grassroots collector. Look at it this way: identify a useful fringe point of view and use a blog(s) to speak to that group and give them somewhere to feel a sense of belonging. Then direct them to progressively broader-view sites that move them toward where you want them to be. It's manipulative, but I've never known that to be a problem for most political groups.
As an aside, dk35 hints at an interesting point: the concepts of Left and Right, Liberal and Conservative have become almost meaningless.
If we were to ask someone from the 18th Century, we'd probably find that they consider most American politicians today extremely "conservative," believing in the primacy of the state and giving it a lot of power. They'd see today's differentiations as more "flavor" than as substantively ideological.
Further deponent sayeth not.
Forums like Kos, slashdot, kuro5hin, etc. have well-known and obvious problems along with their virtues (like giving a voice within the community to individual users in their diaries).
The current American right-of-center is pretty silly about conflating people and language and tactics they find distasteful with radical politics. I suppose since the right governs the country, the "left" seems relevant only in how they oppose the right, so left-of-center ideas (concrete policy or more abstract) seem an incohate muddle. The curious delusion that Hillary is a lefty, for example...not usually shared on the left. (Is she actually popular with Kosites? I'd be very surprised--not a regular reader, so I could be wrong.)
I take it that you, on the other hand, are a regular over there?
Yes, absolutely. Dissent, even heresies, are positively welcomed at Atrios, Kos, etc. The warmth and receptivity accorded counter-arguments in these pews and within these congregations of dissent is positively endearing. Of course, if "participatory" is being used to denote ad hominem snark and vitriol, demonization via a wide arrary of tactics, reductionist and caricatures of counter-arguments, etc., then little or no argument is intended.
Of engagement and John Kerry, it would have been far more engaging if he had more thoughtfully and substantively commented in a middle-of-the-road blog (e.g., Donklephant) and taken on - actively engaged and competed with - contrasting and even contrary opinions. Instead he demagogues and speaks in platitudes. A further, inspiring example of some of that "warmth" and "receptivity to counter-arguments". Even in the safe womb and hive of Kos, Kerry doesn't seriously engage, he does little or nothing more than announce himself - and await his laurels.
Kos (Slashdot, Usenet, listservs) is an ecosystem. Due to self-reinforcing group dynamics and the trolls that exploit and subvert them, open forums eventually and inevitably spin out of control. Perhaps the difficulty of maintaining high-quality participatory forums explains the relative success of blogging, where user participation is secondary (appended to, and commenting on, the blogger's posts) or absent.
I didn't know this was a conservative blog. I thought it was a law blog, or more specifically, a law professors' blog.
Repubs' online operation is more of a top-down, disseminate talking points, mass-email upon signal, troll liberal sites thing. Demos' operation has now started the bias watchdogging once mainly done by the Repubs; but as pointed out by others, is more participatory in discussion (hence more computer-based than radio-based), younger, more college-age-based than retiree-based.
Your (seemingly patronizing) construal (e.g., "mannerly discourse" or "self-consciously polite discourse") is not only not what was intended, it is not at all what was explicitly indicated.
As a reader I will read a blog whose author is interesting. If i want to say something about a particular issue, I will simply pull up the blog most likely to cover it and start commenting there. Thus for instance, I was interested in the NSA isues, and came here. I am also interested in military issues, but I don't normally come here for that. I go elsewhere for my economics, and still elsewhere for my iformation on New Orleans reconstruction. "Politics" is a far wider topic, and I still hit a lot of different blogs for that -- some for political p[hilosophy. some for polls, some for election reform, some for local politics, etc..
The idea of a "super blog" makes sense to me if what it is is basically an index to other sources, perhaps with comments, e.g. Instapundit.
The idea of a "super blog" as the main blog one goes to most of the time doesn't suit my taste. Indeed, it seems a little, well, Stalinesque. But perhaps for one who has an inclination to a statist approach to things it makes sense? It does seem like an attempt to reconstruct network TV in a new medium.
We usually find our priors confirmed when we wade into forums we expect to be unpalatable; The Althouse Affair was a case of this. And liberals may be rude, but they have nothing on a provoked Placido Domingo fan on Opera-L. That is the way of the internet--it's fun to be outraged!
Reading the "comments sections" on the liberal blogs can get old fast as it's mostly passion, and very little intelligent debate. I check out left and right blogs every day just to see what issues are in the forefront. I find the Huffington Post a good place to look at the front page and see which issues are making people most passionate.
Some times you can actually be enlightened. I had no idea what a repugnant and reprehensible person Russert was until I read the discussion on the Huffington Post. Same with Bill Frist.
I was also surprised at the constant vitriolic comments against McCain on some of the conservative blogs. I didn't know he was held in such low regard by the religious right.
Based on my browsing of both sides of the blogosphere, right leaning blogs seem to be smaller, more numerous and more "diverse", left leaning ones fewer, larger, and united by a common point of reference, opposition to all things Bush.
Given a year or two of a liberal Democratic administration, I would expect to see the left side of the blogosphere fracture, as without opposition to Bush as a unifying force the left side will begin to split over finer and finer points of doctrine, much as the right side has already done.
In other words, there is an aggregated conservative community site.
The "warmth" comment was solely tongue-in-cheek and the comment in general was not primarily to whine about any rudeness but was foremost a complaint about a general lack of serious engagement. Nonetheless, I can now readily see how I failed to communicate that primary complaint very well at all, so, while nothing "abject" will be offered, I will admit the fault was mine.