by von
IN MY MEANDERING post below (since updated), I made the following comment:
GLENN REYNOLDS is back at InstaPundit, and it’s a bit sad: InstaPundit always improves a bit when Reynolds takes a vacation and lets others fill in. This is not a slam on Reynolds — though he has become predictable of late — but rather a recognition of the difficulty of solo blogging. Providing both quantity and quality is a tough gig, which may be why the best solo bloggers tend to be journalists (e.g., your Sullivans, Kauses, and Yglesiases) and the high-traffic nonprofessionals (e.g., Reynolds and Charles Johnson) are mostly link aggregators. You’ll find exceptions, of course. But not many.
Professor Reynolds took issue with the main point of my post, and I’ve responded. So enough of that. But Reynolds also took issue with this opening tangent and, since I have twenty seconds to waste, it’s worth twenty more seconds of thought. This is how Reynolds restates my comment above:
Really, people who even admit that they’re "nitpicking" [me] ought to at least follow the links before picking nits, especially in the process of offering a theory about the inherent inferiority of solo blogs. . . . .
I’ll leave to the reader whether Reynolds has accurately characterized my position. I didn’t think that I was offering a theory on the "inherent inferiority of solo blogs" — nor do I think that I could have been understood that way — but I have an obvious bias. (In favor of me, natch.)
In fact, there’s nothing "inherently inferior" about solo blogs. What is true — and I think indisputably so — is that there’s a high level of difficulty and a lot of work in producing a popular solo blog. It’s not easy churning out "both quantity and quality"; it’s a tough gig. So, I posit that most high-traffic solo bloggers will tend to be members of the media. This is not because, word-for-word, a member of the media is a naturally better blogger; although many are quite good. This is because members of the media have experience writing for the general public, have ready access to sources, and sometimes are even given time to blog.
A nonprofessional with a serious day job has a lot of trouble competing with that. So, Reynolds (a law professor) mostly aggregates links, saving time by citing the work of others; Charles Johnson (a web designer) does the same; Professors Bainbridge and Muller (more law professors) write less frequently; Publius joins us; John Cole takes on a co-blogger; the Volokhs start a conspiracy; Jeralyn Merritt (an attorney) also takes on cobloggers; etc. As I mentioned below, you will find exceptions — Captain Ed somehow continues to churn out high-quality product (although today he has a guest blogger) — but not many.
I don’t think that’s all too controversial a point: the blogosphere isn’t so much an "Army of Davids" as a bunch of David-bits that can assemble, Voltron-style, to slay a media Goliath. On occasion. Most of the time, however, the different bits don’t fit together, ignore one another, are actively at war — or they are too busy writing navel-gazing posts like this one. With a few notable exceptions (Reynolds may be one of them), we’re individually empowered to the precise extent that a member of a crowd is empowered: Not very much. But, man, together we can do some serious smashing.
But then, I’ve always been a bit gloomy about human nature. And certainly, I’m distrustful of claims regarding transformations via superior ideology or technology. Despite the big new idea, most folks continue to be their nasty and brutish selves. Thus, change comes slower and less predictably than one would like.
Or, more succinctly: Twenty-plus years on, the internet is still mostly for porno.
This is an open thread.
UPDATE: There’s a nuance I don’t want missed in one of my comments above. I write: "With a few notable exceptions (Reynolds may be one of them), we’re individually empowered to the precise extent that a member of a crowd is empowered: Not very much." Note what’s implied there: a member of a crowd does not have a great deal of individual power, but he does have more power than someone not in the crowd — your prototypical guy who instead lurks in his lerkim, cold under the roof.* The crowd member does have a say in the direction of a crowd: she can calm it, lead it, or shout fire. If enough folks hear her and agree, she might even change its direction. That’s the nature of being in a crowd.
The blogosphere has created a virtual crowd where none existed before. Reynolds is right in his book "An Army of Davids" to recognize the small, but real, shift in power therefrom. Unclear — and I think quite disputed — is the degree of the shift. Or, indeed, where it has shifted us. A crowd, after all, is not always an army. Sometimes it’s a mob, and a vicious one at that. And sometimes it’s simply a crowd.
*Of course, such a lurkim lurker does get to make his own clothes out of miff-muffered moof — so that’s an plus, I guess.
p.s. For those concerned that I’ve abandoned my spat with Kevin Drum and Eric Martin over our intervention in Somalia — a category that may include only me — I intend to have a follow-up later this week. I’d follow-up faster, but I have a day job that’s quite consuming ….
Read more
