The P-I on the Burner-Blogger Relationship
Interesting article in this morning’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the local liberal blogosphere and the impact it’s had on eastside Democrat Darcy Burner’s campaign for Congress.
The Burner-blogger relationship could point the way to the political future, in which Web-based activism exercises a growing influence over regional, statewide and even national elections.
I could be petty and complain that the P-I didn’t note the Slog in its list of local blogs that are watching the Burner race closely (even though we have a significantly higher readership than the other blogs mentioned). But instead I’ll be petty and smirk a bit at this sentence, which, in its earnest attempt to explain blogs to the P-I’s (aging) readers, ends up sounding a bit like Bush talking about those newfangled Internets.
The coinage “blog” comes from Web log and refers to an Internet site whose creator updates it with news or opinions on a theme while allowing visitors to type in comments that can be read by all other viewers.
Welcome to 2006, Seattle P-I readers!
But ribbing aside, the article is a local politics must-read, particularly for its closing paragraphs:
To Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University, the larger question is whether blogs can change voting patterns.Their rabid partisanship attracts mostly true believers, and they end up screeching to the choir.
“Blogs are good for motivating the base,” Shirky said. “They’re not good for convincing swing voters.”
Yet even as echo chambers, blogs will grow in political influence, he said.
“The total reader population of blogs has gone up dramatically,” he said. “The blogosphere is going to become increasingly of a scale that will swing first House races, then Senate races and then eventually presidential races.”
Will the Burner race be one of those first House races that Shirky belives the blogoshpere, in its rise toward increasing political clout, is destined to swing? Six months left until we find out…
so is that why you cover every press release and every public statement of darcy burner? cause you're still trying to prove that blogs are more important than print newspapers?