I’ve been noodling with the issues around the ‘cocooning’ effect of mainstream media and the impact of blogs – and conversely, the ease with which blogs could become a new layer in that cocoon.
My thinking hasn’t gelled yet, but I’ll toss out three blog posts for your consideration.
Over at MyDD, Jerome Armstrong starts listing the ‘perks’ mainstream commentators are getting – speaking fees, sinecures, etc.
Over at Zonkette, Zephyr Teachout comments on the notion of buying blog mindshare by hiring bloggers, and notes that the Dean campaign did just that.
On my own post on ‘astroturf’ blogging, I’m still trying to gather cases where bloggers have become financially or professionally tied to partisan organizations. Clearly blogging is a recruiting tool – smart bloggers have the opportunity to move into advocacy or policy roles, and the visibility their blogs gives them may help that happen. But it also opens the door to a (relatively inexpensive) way to buy buzz and mindshare.
I’m not pointing this out to target Kos or Jerome (both of whom were on the Dean payroll, according to Teachout, in some part because of their blogfluence). I do want to kick open a discussion of the impact of the web of influence on each of us, and the ways that web extends itself to pull in voices that otherwise might challenge it.
I’m interested in all your comments and thinking as I try and work my way toward a conclusion on this.
Do we think less of Locke because Shaftsbury was his patron? We must think little of the audience that their ability to evaluate what they read will be affected more by who wrote it or who paid for it than what is read.
A.L.
This applies to “Astroturf” blogs as much as it does the MSM:
_”To use the network model for a moment, lower cost telecommunications are allowing more accurate, higher bandwidth, information to rapidly route around slower, news filtering, organizations and expose exactly how those filters operate. If those filters don’t add value to attract eyes, they will be ignored.”_
Well, there can be many opinions, many blogs and even openly partisan ones, but there is just one truth. From my point of view, that is the guiding star of the most influential, other blogs that not search for the truth are superfluous, they have no weight, they add nothing to the equation.
This is similar to what happens in business, only the companies that work in the cutting edge of innovation add something useful to the market and see their profit grow. They are the market movers and the rest of producers must follow or die.
For instance, in continental Europe, were socialist propaganda is quite virulent, I have not observed a deep cocooning effect yet. Maybe they have enough with most of the mass media in their hands, or probably it is just that their policy cannot be discuss in a rational way, but it must be accepted as a dogma.
Greetings,
Maybe, my problem is, I just don’t know how to put “cocooning” in real world context with blogs (or anything else OTHER than the natural world).
In plain words, information is subjective to those who put it out and those who read it.
So, is more info, worth more or just a waste.
It is a waste if the person trying to gather info. does not have patience and perserverence.
Why, because infomation (even gathered, combed and primped info) has to be read, tried to be understood and then EVEN more info. needs to be gathered, read, absorbed before any kind of intelligent conclusion can be came to.
Information overload can happen, then its time to sleep or do some other activity and let things congeal in the thinking process.
Of course a few drinks always helps getting it started and the fingers loosened up to spit out any conclusions…right…or…wrong.
This is MY post
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
I didn’t know that Markos was getting paid to sell Howard Dean’s cornflakes. Was this something that was widely known? Seems kind of mercenary to me – let me check the Daily Kos FAQ just to be sure:
Q: What do you call people who fight for profit?
A: Mercenaries.
Q: What do we feel for mercenaries?
A: Nothing.
Q: What do we say about mercenaries?
A: Screw them.
Not that I care – when it comes to credibility, the proof is in the pudding. Or in this case, isn’t in the pudding. But when there’s so much mindless tribalism and intellectual conformity being given away for free, why would anybody pay for it?
I don’t see the connection to speaker’s fees, though, which seems to be a different thing altogether. Whether it comes from corporations or student committees, this is notoriously stupid money that any famous loudmouth can get with no strings attached.
If Jerome Armstrong is trying to make a case, I’m not impressed. Apart from meaningless speaker’s fees, what prominent journalist/pundit isn’t on the masthead of thirty-seven silly Institutes, Centers, and Foundations? It’s like a welfare entitlement for “public intellectuals”, except that rich fools foot the bill instead of the taxpayer.
The value of the bloggers and the ‘blogosphere’ is that they (we) are expressly *unconnected* to the Main Stream Media and official policy positions, per se. I think of it as a purity, for lack of a more appropriate single term. What bloggers collectively bring to (so far)the table is a collection of decidedly unfettered, unfiltered, unscreened for content. Pardon my own reference, but we are The Word Unheard. We weren’t part of ‘The Club’.
That’s the beauty of it. Once a measurable number of the top blogs/bloggers are co-opted (through the exposure of their writing talents and/or ideas) into either policy or press circles, the original collective value takes a hit.
I liken it to the genuine maverick new politician who runs on change, gets elected, goes to Washington with visions of the needed change but realizes he cannot tame the beast. He must play within the system that he despises to pursue any hope of changing the very system he must use. In relatively short order, either the beast has claims him and he becomes what he most despised from election to election…or he returns home angry, frustrated and ineffectual.
Each blogger that ‘ascends’ (I would argue it is the opposite) to membership of either ‘Club’ takes on a new battle to prevent losing ‘Outsider’ status and being tagged as ‘just another yapper yapping.’ That blogger is lost for ever on the rest.
The beauty/value of bloggers is that we are NOT the MSM nor Washington, but have proven (collectively) that our ideas are no less valid or tangible.
As more and more of the ‘Best & Brightest’ transition to The Clubs, our perception loses its value collectively.
Just one man’s opinion…
Hmmm. It sounds like they stroked Kos’ ego in order to use him.
Let me get this straight. These bloggers took money to write things they were already going to write? And their readers were already going to agree with what they wrote? Where do I sign up…
Just kidding.
The unfortunate result is that these bloggers look a whole lot more like MSM(Armstrong Williams is just a drop in the bucket). If there isn’t any difference, then why do we manufacture so much moral outrage at the MSM’s antics?
I don’t believe that a Blogger’s Code of Ethics is worth a dime, but I would like to at least appear different than the MSM.
Give me ad money all day long, but don’t pay me a bribe and call it ‘consulting’.
Hell, I don’t even have ads, Mazoo!
Don’t want them either (even if I had traffic to justify it…which I decidedly do NOT…hahaha).
Give me nothing and I’ll keep my work within my own vacuum…
USMC_Vet,
To be honest I don’t have any either, but I wouldn’t consider those to be a conflict of interest. Especially if I am not the one choosing the ads.
No, right now I don’t have to worry about anybody trying to bribe me. I’m still trying to find people to debate with on my blog.
I recall seeing a notice at the top of Kos’ site saying that he did technical work for the Dean campaign. I see no such notice that Marc works for SOA here.
Also Marc, you might be interested in the “DCI Group”:http://www.dcigroup.com/2021/wrapper.jsp?PID=2021-11 who publishes Tech Central Station. Some better known bloggers write for them. Do they get paid for their columns? I dunno; they have never said whether they do or not.
Ann, you missed “this post”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/005009.php ??
And the widely disseminated stories around it? But actually, I haven’t worked for them for over seven months now.
And yes, I know several righty bloggers have sold columns to DCI; Unlike Kos, Atrios, or Willis I’m not painting this as an exclusively ‘left’ or ‘right’ issue.
I’m actually genuinely interested both in the impact of the media lens and of the overt and less-than overt co-opting of blogs.
I simply think it’s a waste of time to make it a matter of keeping score…
A.L.
Ann also missed the reference to Tech Central Station, with “[JK]” beside it, in our blog’s right sidebar under “Other Team Memberships”. Not to mention the various posts here promoting my articles there, which have sadly dropped away as other things and blog admin. have deprived me of writing time.
Yes, bloggers do get paid by Tech Central Station – just as one is paid by any other magazine or professional publication who publishes a writer. TCS’ rates are a lot lower than most other magazines, a flat fee that ranges from $50 to a couple hundred per article depending on the terms of one’s agreement with them.
Bloggers are writers. Getting paid to write published articles is normal and unexceptional for them. As for keeping it secret, are you kidding me? When we get published somewhere, we tell everybody so they can go read our wit and insight in a “real” publication (subtext: see Ma, this blogging thing can lead to real stuff after all)!
Getting paid to consult is a very different kind of relationship.