More on the Impact of Blogging
Back onto the subject of blogs, The Pew Internet & American Life Project just completed a survey of forty of the biggest and most respected political blogs to determine if and how much blogs can influence the media and how the media influences them. Guardian Unlimited highlighted the study's findings in a recent article.
In the article GSPM's (and Pew's) own Michael Cornfield said, "Sometimes blogs lead and can be very influential and other times they're followers," adding that bloggers are beginning to have some influence in shaping the agenda of the media. Blogs can survive the "smoking gun" type memo such as the one that helped break Rathergate and that is why they have the potential to make an impact.
While blogs do help us disseminate the wealth of information that is out there, Cornfield feels we should not place too much weight in blogging's ability to necessarily impact political life. Cornfield said "For a conversation to acquire the intense simultaneity of buzz, and for buzz to register with force in public affairs, requires a number of other factors to be present, few of which are likely to be at the disposal of a single blogger, or even a blogging collective, ready to activate at will."
What blogs do have working for them is that they are able to condense materials that might be hundreds of pages that the general public would never have the time nor the desire to read into manageable smaller pieces the people would not mind reading.
I do find it very interesting that the Pew Institute has completed a study to help answer some of the questions PMGT 218 has been asking in class sessions or on individual blogs.
In the article GSPM's (and Pew's) own Michael Cornfield said, "Sometimes blogs lead and can be very influential and other times they're followers," adding that bloggers are beginning to have some influence in shaping the agenda of the media. Blogs can survive the "smoking gun" type memo such as the one that helped break Rathergate and that is why they have the potential to make an impact.
While blogs do help us disseminate the wealth of information that is out there, Cornfield feels we should not place too much weight in blogging's ability to necessarily impact political life. Cornfield said "For a conversation to acquire the intense simultaneity of buzz, and for buzz to register with force in public affairs, requires a number of other factors to be present, few of which are likely to be at the disposal of a single blogger, or even a blogging collective, ready to activate at will."
What blogs do have working for them is that they are able to condense materials that might be hundreds of pages that the general public would never have the time nor the desire to read into manageable smaller pieces the people would not mind reading.
I do find it very interesting that the Pew Institute has completed a study to help answer some of the questions PMGT 218 has been asking in class sessions or on individual blogs.
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