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Blogs R Diff’rt
You can find the Powerpoint that goes with this presentation here.
I provided this handout at the 10/11/07 AAPC Academic Outreach Conference at the UAkron Bliss Institute for Applied Politics. You may quote or use any portion of it so long as you provide attribution to me and Writes Like She Talks. Where something doesn’t seem to make sense, it most likely is because it was explained by the Powerpoint slide I used in conjunction with the handout. I’m still trying to figure out how to make that available for readers.
Jill Miller Zimon
Freelance Writer, Editor and Blogger
jillzimon@mac.com
Writes Like She Talks: writeslikeshetalks.com
Making Democracy Happen
Panel: News, Bloggers and New Media in 2008 Ohio
I. Blogs are different (different is still good)
A. Interaction Addiction
1. Pay attention to me: discussion forums
2. Connect with me: comment threads
3. Tell me something I don’t know: email lists
4. Work with me: wikis
These tools that serve blogs, bloggers and the people who read and write them have migrated to print publications’ online selves. They are the primary mode of communication between a blog author, other than his or her posts, and the readers.
B. Keep your eye on the blog
For taking the temperature of people on a particular issue, they are as important, if not more important to follow than the main blog posts. They can also be more difficult to monitor: they are more numerous, are often anonymous, may not involve follow-up for several comments if at all.
Monitor these modes of interaction, at least for the most relevant ones, for their depth of information and, hopefully, variety of views. Methods such as RSS feeds (syndication), email subscriptions to the blog, blog post or blog comments and systems like Google Alerts or co.comments will help you keep track of and subjected to input according to when you choose to review that information.
C. Do you know who I am?
Resist the urge to focus on only high-traffic blogs – state-wide or nationally. They will not necessarily prove to be the most important or influential. Importance and influence depends more on the communities of readers they attract. This fact goes to the hyper-local aspect of many successful blogs.
Two excellent examples in Ohio are the Lorain blog, Word of Mouth and the Toledo blog, Glass City Jungle. Interest in Lorain’s school board and district issues became so intense that the WOM blog opened up a “room” for people to visit and talk about what’s going on. They call it the LCS Lounge and it has over 1000 comments in it. If you’re following school issues anywhere, or if you’re interested in the frustrations for Lorain residents, you want to follow this blog.
Amy Gahran (contentious.com) advises, “A blog read by 10 people could be a huge deal if they are the 10 right people. So treat all bloggers with respect.”
D. Conceal & Skew = Reveal & Spew
Encourage your candidates, issues’ promoters and other clients toward transparency, and apply it to yourself as well.
Contrary to the popular belief that bloggers are sloppy, loose with facts and only promote their opinion as gospel truth, people who produce content via online media, especially regarding politics, tend to cross-check and dig when they find something of potential interest. Whatever you try to conceal or skew will be exactly what bloggers will try to reveal and publicize.
E. Issue? I don’t even know you
Readers and writers who operate outside of traditional newsrooms (radio, print and broadcast included) are more interested in issues and context and less interested in horserace-style reporting. The Internet adds an aspect of longevity and an ability to follow-up and link to prior news and rumors in an easily accessible way that print alone does not provide. While these aspects cut both ways (you can also “scrub” information, and that has its own issues), no matter how they are used, they mean that old issues may never die. Bloggers can have as long a memory as a search engine has archives.
II. Does anybody really care: The impact of blogs on the political process
A. Political blogs are a far smaller proportion than people realize. Here are some stats from 2006’s Pew Internet & American Life Project:
Some key findings:
* When asked to choose one main subject, 37% of bloggers say that the primary topic of their blog is “my life and experiences.”
* Other topics ran distantly behind: 11% of bloggers focus on politics and government; 7% on entertainment; 6% on sports; 5% on general news and current events; 5% on business; 4% on technology; 2% on religion, spirituality or faith. Additional smaller groups focus on a specific hobby, a health problem or illness, or other topics.
B. There’s a spectrum of activity along the “the political process” continuum.
Voter side: information, donation, education
Candidate/issue: information, donation, messaging
Advertising
Fundraising
Voting
Blogs’ involvement exists at each point, but assessment of their impact on any one facet of the political process continues to be primarily anecdotal, although the Bliss Institute has been one of the leaders in trying to gauge the impact.
Examples of influence:
Howard Dean and Wesley Clark’s rise to serious candidates, Ned Lamont
Conservative blogs’ questioning of a 60 Minutes report about George Bush’s military service led to an admission by CBS that it could not verify accusations and had to retract them
George Allen’s “macaca” moment during which he referred to a law student and blogger as “macaca,” a phrase considered by some people to be an ethnic slur as well as a species of monkey. The video of the incident went viral and the traditional media picked it up.
In Ohio: Tim Brown of Wood County and the OH-5
On the more ephemeral side, the Internet expands the base of people to whom a candidate can appeal – for money and votes, though, as with Allen, exposure also can be devastating. Even with the President followed so closely, the impact as being positive or negative can be debated.
C. Who’s using whom
Controlling the message is as important to the blogger as it is to the candidate. So, who controls? This concept is at the heart of a schism within the political blogosphere: take money, lose independence? Or, take money and become more empowered?
In the end, the answer to that question is probably less important than the job the blogger does for the candidate – whether it’s showing ads, helping raise funds or blogging directly for the candidate. Because in the end, the voter is still the one to be influenced – and that requires that the voter is reading the blog in the first place.
So far, there is not much evidence that people change their vote because of something they read on a blog. But prolonged focus on an issue or candidate, especially when the story leaps to traditional media, means someone’s going to increase or decrease their value with the voter. And it started with a blog.
III. A day without blogs is like a day without…: What the future might hold
Movement toward the use of blogs, intentionally and unintentionally, has increased in every election cycle since 2000.
Current efforts that may typify what to expect include the MyDD bloggers starting the blog, Open Left, and categorizing a group of congressional members as “Bush Dogs.” We’ve not seen a lot of play on that yet in the traditional media, and there’s been push-back at the local level. But, as bloggers, it’s one way that they’re trying to move an agenda. Zack Space of the OH-18, formerly Bob Ney’s district, has been heavily targeted, and yet supported by local bloggers.
In Ohio municipal races, we see more uses of the Internet in campaign websites and tapping money. That will continue to trend. It also parallels Barack Obama’s success in broadening name recognition and a base of donors.
As television viewing declines and tools like cell phones become walking entertainment units, more ways to reach voters wherever they are will arise. Whether those tools will be blogs is impossible to predict. However, voters are taking advantage of computer-based interaction tools – think of the YouTube debate with the Democratic presidential candidates. As people feel that no one hears them, they want more ways to express themselves. Candidates and consultants would be wise to continue to monitor those expressions, form a message that shows you’ve been listening and determine how to convert that relationship into votes, and wins.
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