Vox Populi?

Since I didn't explain myself well in class last night, I wanted to follow up on my comment with a post here:

While I appreciate that the Internet (and blogs specifically) have the power to lower barriers to political participation and flatten the playing field so that new voices can be heard, I'm skeptical of the assertion that these aspects of the technology will have the long-term effects some people think they will. Claims that technology, or aspects of technology, will create social change fall dangerously into the realm of technological determinism, which as a theory fails to adequately describe the reciprocal interactions between technology and society.

Do blogs amplify new voices? Yes. Does technology, as Carol Darr of IPDI says, "democratize" politics by lowering the barriers to entry"? Yes.

These are significant effects that should be noted, but let's also note the adverse effects as well:

Do blogs make it more difficult to recognize the race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, or physical ability of the poster? Yes.

Is this a good thing? Absolutely not.

Someone in class said something to the effect of "Blogs are good because they help move us towards a society where we don't see people or their opinions in terms of the color of their skin." If this was meant as 'we shouldn't judge people based on these characteristics,' I completely agree, but we should still recognize people's race, gender, etc when listening to their opinions.

I think we have to be careful with blogs. When someone speaks, I want to know where he or she is coming from. On the blogs, that's tough to do. When The Toaster Speaks, isn't it important to know who he is in real life? Democratizing, lowering barriers, and flattening playing fields are all well and good, but not at the expense of homogenizing the online community. Let's NOT use blogs as a venue to carry out those awful distopian "multicultural programs" from high school that focus on unity and cohesiveness and, in the process, fail to celebrate diversity.

Even if you disagree, at least recognize this: despite all the happy, fluffy talk about blogs, most political bloggers are well-educated, privileged white men. Has the game really changed all that much?

Go Daddy Go

John at AmericaBLOG has asked his users to stop using GoDaddy.com, a web hosting/registering service, because the owner of GoDaddy.com is a right-wing hack. Now, I don't necessarily buy into the school of thought that we should boycott everything remotely attached to the opposition, but I do think there is a conflict of interest when (a) the president of GoDaddy.com uses the corporate logo on his personal blog and (b) GoDaddy.com links back to the president's blog. John writes:

[GoDaddy's] president is, well, a right-wing nut... And worse yet, the company Web site links to his blog, and his blog has the company logo on the top of it. That is not somebody's "personal" blog when you use your company, a company I give money to, to help direct traffic to this man's uber-right-wing vitriol.

I agree. And it raises an important question of separating personal blogs from professional blogs. As online organizers, we may all be called to blog for campaigns and candidates. Are we obliged to make a clear separation between our personal blogs and our work? I think so.

By any other name

Since I'm trying to learn about how to construct a good e-newsletter, I've subscribed to various mailing lists of the left-wing nature (HRC, EMILY's List, Victory Fund, NARAL, MoveOn, NOW, Rock the Vote, CAF, CPL, CAP). One thing I've quickly realized is that the name of your newsletter is extremely important.

Take EMILY's List, for example: one of their weekly newsletters is called "Insider News." As a supporter, I know that when it comes to the issue of choice and abortion rights, EMILY's List probably knows a lot more than I do, so when I hear about "Insider News," coming from the experts, it sounds exciting and I feel privileged (rather than burdened) by reading it. They also wisely include an icon at the top that reads "Support our commitment to giving you the inside scoop. Make a contribution to EMILY's List now!" which offers a compelling reason to donate.

Anyone else have good examples of newsletter titles?

Whining Mayor West

Via the Washington Post, this article on Spokane Mayor Jim West:

After what Mayor James West called his "brutal outing" by a newspaper that published transcripts of his conversations from a gay chat room, he complained in an e-mail to the city's commission on race relations. West asked: "Should we all fear that our private conversations will be splashed publicly and out of context for all in our sphere to see?" The answer, Internet privacy advocates say, is "yes."

As a Washington native, I have particularly strong views on Mayor West. Setting aside my initial (but intense) distaste for any gay politician who votes against the needs of the LGBT community, I think Mayor West's claim to privacy is laughable.

If The Spokesman-Review (the newspaper that outed West) had broken into his computer and lifted his emails, that would be different, but in this case, some smart people figured out what his chat ID was on Gay.com and based their investigation entirely on what he was doing in public chat rooms.

The lesson to be learned here is one that we, as GSPM students, were taught on Day 1 of Orientation: be careful what you say and where you say it. I clearly remember Dean Arterton warning us to not talk about work at bars, where anyone can (and will) hear you. As online political organizers, we should apply that lesson to the Internet as well. The buzzword "online privacy" will only go so far, and will not protect individual stupidity.

Opting In

In her article on RSS feeds, Amy Gahran writes:

Almost every established e-mail publisher I know right now is finding it nearly impossible to keep their subscription list from inexorably shrinking, largely due to this address turnover phenomenon. Often, an address that was subscribed only a few weeks or months before will suddenly start bouncing. If your bounce rate is climbing, that’s a good indicator that you should implement a webfeed and promote it as an option to your audience. This strategy could preserve your readership in the long run.

I'm skeptical. Considering the relatively low penetration of "RSS feed" technology in mainstream America, I really doubt that offering webfeeds to political newsletter readers would be successful to the extent Gahran claims. My observation has been that online supporters are made up of a lot of novice tech users who subscribe to political lists as a way of keeping updated with the campaigns and issues they care about. More importantly than their inexperience with technology (and this is assumed-- I'd like to see some research on it), their subscriptions to these newsletters are usually timed around an issue or candidate campaign. I'm not sure that users who are juggling a number of subscriptions are unhappy with the situation.

The tricky part is once the campaign is over... then the newsletters get old. I'm so sick of hearing from John Kerry (you lost, Senator! Move on! (literally)) that I do agree with Gahran that there has to be, at some point, a way of keeping track of subscriptions.