Simon World posts an interesting piece on pollster extraordinaire John Zogby, who spoke recently on the state of the election. He had plenty of interesting feedback, but this one in particular struck a cord:
Blogs: Zogby saw these as important, with each having its own constituency. However they are unlikely to change minds; instead “they serve to stoke the fires of anger.” In other words, blogs are preaching to the converted.
We’re only stoking the fires of anger? OK, so I am, but Moe and Sebastian and Von and Katherine and Hilzoy?
Are we really just puppets to the parties—house dogs scrounging under the table for that fallen morsel?
In all seriousness, what is the blogosphere at this point? I mean, I like to think it 1) provides an important check on the ever-increasingly fluffly/lazy MSM; 2) provides a 24/7 townhall forum that strengthens our democracy; 3) educates and challenges long-held misperceptions; and 4) is fun. But what about Zogby’s central charge that blogs are unlikely to change minds? I’ve changed my opinions on several issues since I started debating on blogs. I’ve certainly learned to listen and look before I leap better and that’s paid off in my worklife in ways even my boss has commented on.
Zogby has plenty of other feedback worthy of discussion, but is he right about the limited effect the blogs are having on this election? (I ask the choir…)
Zogby is sharp, but like many he misses the complexity of the blogosphere. Some blogs preach to the choir; some as party hacks and others with their own message. Other blogs, however, are places where people of different persuasions discuss their differences. I think that the Blogosphere is like a giant brain where ideas are hashed over in an attempt to make a decision.
It’s like to trying to discuss the effects of television. It’s pointless because there are so many effects and because television is so heterogeneous, depending on what you’re watching.
The only effect of blogs that you can describe with certainty is that they cause a lot of people to spend a lot of time reading blogs.
Edward, if you want to look at the significance of the blogs, look no further than today’s NY Times article on the Jon Stewart/Crossfire saga that even credits the blogs. Without them the press wouldn’t be publishing many of their stories these days. What i sense here is that people who don’t want facts checked don’t like blogs because they can’t get away with their usual obfuscation.
Obsidian Wings is an almost unique forum where very politically different and passionate posters get together fairly civilly on a fairly regular basis. I really have to credit Moe for keeping it together.
I think part of Zogby’s problem is that he looks at each individual blog as merely its own entity. Many entries on an individual blog may have the appearance of preaching to the choir, but the cross-blog debates as a whole don’t lend that same impression. The DeLong-Crooked Timber (plus a bunch of other people) debate on heroism is a good example.
Doesn’t Zogby have to underestimate the power of blogs because if he were to accept that blogs have created a new group of likely voters that would not be measured by current methods and he incorporated ways to add that group to the pool, his results would really look like an outlier compared to Gallup and others? The article notes that he uses higher weights than last year for young people, but is he weighting it enough? I don’t think that he is consciously saying that he can’t be too far out from other polls, but I think that must factor in somehow.
A few links
WSJ article (on Zogby’s site)
One on statistical weighting
And for balance, a Prospect article going after Zogby
Whatever the blogosphere is, and I think it’s overrated at the moment but will settle somewhere within the other human institutions with flaws and foibles, I think Obsidian Wings is close to what it should be, and thank you for that.
I arrive here self-stoked most of the time and ready for the Revolution. But once that’s out of the way and I’m installed as President for an interim period, each Obsidian will be given a high position in the Cabinet. I see Katherine as Secretary of State, Edward as Ambassador to a rejuvenated U.N. and later heading up a health care task force; Von will be Attorney General with maybe a Supreme Court appointment down the road; Sebastian is Secretary of Defense, but must consult Katherine every morning. Hilzoy will run Social Security and Medicare, the EPA, and just about everything else.
Moe Lane is my Chief of Staff. He has two jobs. Making sure the staff meetings are relatively civil and wheeling me into the staff meetings on a gurney with a leather mask over my face like Hannibal Lechter. He will also be the actual President, because I have way too many hobbies as it is.
“Obsidian Wings is an almost unique forum where very politically different and passionate posters get together fairly civilly on a fairly regular basis. I really have to credit Moe for keeping it together.”
Yup. And the fact that it is unique (Tacitus was once bipartisan, until Tacitus let Bird Dog and suchlike metaphorically trash the place) confirms Zogby’s point. I’d say there are USENET political fora that are more diverse ideologically than most political blog communities.
People who read political blog are interested in politics. People who are interested in politics tend to know where they stand, and, if they’re more than a few years out of college, aren’t likely to make massive ideological leaps. Maybe someone else’s argument might make a difference to certain issues which are low down on your priorities (Amy Sullivan wrote an article on gun rights that changed my opinion from pro-gun control to agnostic), but it’s not going to change one’s fundamental world-view*.
Lastly, the blogosphere has taught me that coming up with original ideas is fucking hard (hence my decision to not blog), and, with a few exceptions, I’m going to learn more from an article in Harper’s or the American Prospect or the Economist than from most bloggers output; so now instead of reading 20-30 blogs regularly I now read 5-6.
(*Which is shaped by life experiences; e.g. your parent’s reaction to major events, what the ideological slant of your educators was who exposed you first to political ideas [and how sympathetic those educators were], or whether, as a man, reciting feminist rhetoric got you anywhere with certain attractive feminists.)
I think Zogby’s far more right than wrong, which is why I find the blogosphere’s delight in Jon Stewart on Crossfire so funny.
I mean, look at a list of the top 100 political blogs. How many spin less hard than Tucker Carlson or Paul Begala? Not a heck of a lot.
“Moe Lane is my Chief of Staff. He has two jobs. Making sure the staff meetings are relatively civil and wheeling me into the staff meetings on a gurney with a leather mask over my face like Hannibal Lechter. He will also be the actual President, because I have way too many hobbies as it is.”
Sweet Jeebus, I don’t want to be President. Imagine the time sheets. 🙂
More seriously, I think that blogs are both more and less than what they’re being portrayed as. And this just became a topic for an actual blog entry, so let me ruminate a bit more.
How dare the partisan hack John Zogby say such a thing! I’m outraged!
Alright, I still hold to my idea that speaking generally about the blogosphere is pointless, but I’ll enter the fray anyway.
One significant difference is the sheer number of participants, including not only bloggers but commenters. One quirky thing about postmodern media is that the pundits are responsible for pushing the stories, and yet they also need to be told what’s a story and what isn’t. That’s why it takes forever for many interesting stories to get rolling. Nobody will talk about it because it isn’t ‘a story’. Some podunk paper will do an article. Maybe it’ll get mentioned on the back page of the Times. Then Stewart will make a joke about it, and then it suddenly hits prime time and Wolf Blitzer won’t shut up about it. These are really incredibly passive, dependent people.
Bloggers et al are generally not like that. I’m not sure yet why that is, but Drum, Sullivan, and Tacitus are not afraid to push a story if it isn’t officially news. In fact, they push it harder until it’s officially news.
So blogs change the dynamic because there’s a sudden massive number of people willing to tell the pundits what the story is, something they desperately need. Which is why the blogosphere has had a very disproportionate effect on media coverage. What % of the US population participates? Maybe a hundredth of a percent? And yet they drive stories.
Interestingly, it’s not the first time that effect has been taken advantage of. The power of the Republican Wurlitzer was built on the idea that the media will make a story of anything you convince them is a story. So Scaife, Moon, and others built a sufficient network of media to be able to ‘prove’ to the major media that anything they want (rhymes with Vince Foster) is a story.
One of my many hopes for the blogosphere is that it will dampen down the Wurlitzer since the major media will now have another source (including the same people who fed the Wurlitzer, of course, but more balanced) telling them what stories to tell.
Of course, the real solution is to have the major media stop being such f*%$ing cowards, and figure out for themselves what are important stories.
I second (third, whatever) both the congratulations to Moe for maintaining a civil site that might actually change minds, and the thought that generalizations about blogs are almost invariably silly. (I mean, how could one discuss blogs without so much as mentioning Fafblog? And what conceivable Zogby pontification could possibly do it justice?)
I originally started blogging sort of by accident: it was during the Clark campaign; I had done a bunch of research before sending him money; I fairly quickly realized that the (not particularly impressive) amount of checking I had done was more than most of the media seemed willing to do, and was moreover something that it would be nice of me to spare other people the trouble of doing, especially since I had saved all the links; and so I started posting on the Clark blog, mostly just because there were people there who wanted to know the answers to questions like, what is Clark’s position on the Endangered Species Act?, and I could tell them how to find out.
I fairly quickly came to the conclusion that blogs had the potential to transform politics, or at least political organizing. All those Clarkies reading their own local newspapers brought things to one another’s attention much more quickly than would have been possible otherwise; we could ask questions and figure out the answers much more easily than ever before; we could organize and publicize events with virtually no effort, make documents, T-shirt transfers, and whatever available to one another instantly, and so forth. Campaign blogs seem to me totally outside Zogby’s comments.
It was also through the Clark blog that I became aware of other blogs, since of course people were forever linking to them. I started hanging out on kos, for instance, for the same reason I initially started posting on the Clark blog: there were people with questions to which I knew the answer, and also (unlike the Clark blog) people with misconceptions that I could politely correct. Kos is, of course, much closer to Zogby’s characterization, but even there he misses a lot: for instance, it’s a great way to find out about stories you’d never otherwise hear about (unless you were willing to read several hundred daily papers every day.) And it’s easy to distinguish the legitimate stories from the tinfoil hat ones. Moreover, it’s extremely useful for finding out about Congressional races in other states, which are very rarely covered in my home paper.
The expert blogs are, of course, immensely useful to those of us who are not experts in the relevant fields. And they have really changed my mind on certain issues. And for those of us who like to check our facts, they serva another useful function: you can follow their links and think: oh, that’s where you find the labor department’s unemployment statistics! (Although I always try to do this with several different ideologically opposed blogs, to be on the safe side.)
And then there’s the fact that on thoughtful blogs I can find whole lines of thought that would never otherwise have occurred to me. I am extremely grateful for this, and while it might or might not change my mind on any given occasion, I would be amazed if the fact of having so many whole new thoughts available to me didn’t change the way I think.
Personally, I don’t read the blogs that preach to the converted for anything other than new information, and it’s not surprising to me, in retrospect, that I stopped posting on kos around the time that Kerry won the nomination — or, in other words, around the time that kos’ readership stopped being ‘convertible’ and started being ‘on my side’. I don’t think that (had I been invited) I would have agreed to post on any blog that had a one-sided readership — it’s too much trouble if you’re just talking to people who already agree with you. This blog is different, which is why I’m here: it matters a lot to me that we manage to maintain civil discourse, and also that liberals and conservatives have the chance to encounter and debate three-dimensional versions of their opponents, not caricatures. I personally also benefit enormously from the discussions here. It’s a tribute to Moe, and to everyone who hangs out here; and I’m grateful.
You know that all I post is true
You know I’m preaching to the choir
When I try to say to you
That Dubya is an evil liar
C’mon baby stoke my fire
C’mon baby stoke my fire
Try to get my blood pressure higher…
Zogby’s wrong. Joi Ito‘s right.
His model of Emergent Democracy predated Howard Dean’s campaign and anticipated much of what we are involved with today.
Features like Scoop and the dKos recommended diaries continue to support the model.
Been reading this site almost every day for about six months. I just want to delurk and let the contributors know how much I enjoy reading this place too. It’s much less partisan than Tacitus or DKOS and there’s a real range of debate here. I must admit I was really dismayed by Tac for booting Trickster’s editorship for strictly ideological reasons. My only complaint about Obsidian Wings though is the software. Think you guys might consider a transition to Scoop like DKOS and TAC? –M
Actually, at the risk of starting something bad, I have always thought that the web was the closest thing around to Marx’s utopian vision. (The risk is obvious, but let’s at least try to distinguish Marx’s vision of what the point of it all was supposed to be from his vision of how to get there.) Ultimately, for Marx, our needs would be met, and we would work not for pay but because we wanted to. The link between work and pay would be broken; people would produce things just for the fun of it, and because we are the sorts of beings who like to express ourselves by creating things; and other people would use what we created as needed. I’ve never thought this was a particularly good way to run an entire economy, but it is very much the way parts of the web work, notably including blogs and the software geeks who make freeware.
The link between work and pay would be broken; people would produce things just for the fun of it, and because we are the sorts of beings who like to express ourselves by creating things; and other people would use what we created as needed.
That’s a wonderful assessment hilzoy.
As the MSM each start their own blog, or hire or draft the best bloggers to write for them (think Drum, Kos, our own Katherine), though, that is likely to change. Fortunately, most of the MSM blogs are not as popular as the voluntary ones, yet, but I watched as the internet shifted from being a hobby of dedicated volunteers, with a fair bit of idealism, into something corporations took total credit for and we now hear wispers about wanting to charge for (at least email). Blogs are heading the same way, methinks.
Just because there’s potentially money to be made from something, though, doesn’t mean that it should evolve that way.
Also, I’m really curious about how many people will continue to blog as religiously after the elections. I think what’s really driving up its popularity is the closeness and intensity of the campaigns. I won’t be surprised if it dies down a bit after the next inauguration.
Also, I’m really curious about how many people will continue to blog as religiously after the elections.
I’m going to make a major personal revelation on November 3rd, when no one will be around to read it, and then I’m going to take two weeks off.
Maybe more.
I might even sign up for Nanowrimo this year.
And finish it.
I think Zogby has it right, for the most part. Political blogging is a highly partisan endeavor. There’s some crossover between middle-of-the-road bloggers – and civil collectives like ObWi – but a vast self-selection process takes place on most political blogs, allowing right-leaning blogs to accumulate readers in one corner and left-leaning blogs to accumulate readers in another. How many blogs link to both DKos and Redstate?
As for blogs’ other talents: the blogosphere has, in general, vastly overestimated its ability to act as an effective counterweight to the mainstream media. “Rathergate” didn’t come about because of the grassroots power of the mighty blog; it came about because operatives like Drudge wanted – or were told – to push the story. We’ve yet to “break” a story on our own (How much success have blogs had in breaking, say, Diebold as a major national concern? On November 2, they’ll still be voting without a paper trail in Florida). When it tries to act as a fact-checker, the twists and turns of the mainstream media too often spin blogs, rather than the other way ’round (immediately after the third debate, everyone online thought the biggest gaffe would be Bush’s revisiting his “I don’t care about bin Laden” moment; a major push on cable and print – with all the usual blog suspects giddily falling into lockstep – turned Mary Cheney’s open sexuality into one of the most absurd and storied memes of the political season).
Blogs have proven best at a sort of community-building, activism-oriented politics – but this does not lend itself to a widespread open-mindedness on either the left or the right.
How many blogs link to both DKos and Redstate?
Mine does. And to Oliver Willis and Instapundit. I see a lot of others that do as well. There are certainly those that go for an echo chamber, but I find the comment sections on those really, really dull.
“Rathergate” didn’t come about because of the grassroots power of the mighty blog; it came about because operatives like Drudge wanted – or were told – to push the story.
I disagree. Drudge may have reported on the issue, and that may have been the vector to the mainstream media coverage of it, but it was the convincing exposure of the forgery and the technical analysis of the documents done by bloggers that made it credible. Without that, Drudge would have had nothing to go with.
J. Maynard, a nice thing about the lack of bells and whistles here is that one can more or less read the site. Many of the ObWi commenters maintain full-scale blogs of their own, and if imported as diarists would provide an embarrassment of riches.
Seconded Rilkefan.
“if imported as diarists would provide an embarrassment of riches.”
Or a rich supply of embarassment.
blogging to the choir beats having to listen to and read media and ads and radio screamers…etc. without cessation….sometimes it’s nice to find others who think or care similarly, then to branch out….
Who will deliver my sermon?
I like the dynamic threading features for comments in scoop. Diaries and pseudo-authenticated logins are the cream. But, that’s JMO. Obviously the content here is interesting enough to keep dragging me back. 🙂 –M
I’m not sure yet why that is, but Drum, Sullivan, and Tacitus are not afraid to push a story if it isn’t officially news. In fact, they push it harder until it’s officially news.
But they also jump on the bandwagon of whatever the media at large says is a story. When the National Guard scandal came up, Drum made an initial post saying it was a stupid story and he wasn’t going to write about it. But within a few days he was the go-to guy for the liberal take on it.
I think the difference is that blogs lack the volume and comprehensiveness constraints that the big media face — you can post as much or as little as you like, and there’s no expectation that you cover stories in proportion to their importance. So bloggers have the freedom to be incredibly proactive as well as incredibly reactive (though sadly in practice they do more of the latter).