Blogs
The liberal blogosphere as a village,
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 09/21/2006 - 15:57the question is, what sort of village.
(Cross posted at Greater Democracy)
Over on MyDD, Micah Sifry has posted his thoughts on the meeting former President Clinton had with a group of bloggers. Matt Stoller, who attended the meeting, has this post up talking about some of the impressive stuff another blogger, Jane Hamsher, who also attended the meeting is doing. In his post, he writes, Like Chris, I'm feeling bored by the political environment, and somewhat useless.
I mentioned this to a friend who wrote that he wasn’t worried about the post and went on to talk about new connections being forged.
Perhaps it is what is going on in my personal life that is fueling my worry. About two weeks ago, my wife’s face went numb. She rushed off to the hospital to make sure it wasn’t a stroke. It turned out to be Bell’s Palsy, a common symptom of Lyme disease.
Over the past two weeks, we’ve been dealing with this. The ability to detect and treat Lyme disease, like any other important medical advance has come as a result of people working together. As John DeStefano often says in his stump speech, none of us got to where we are by ourselves. We all stand on other people’s shoulders. We go to work on roads paved by others.
It has become more personal to me, as friends have brought food, have taken care of Fiona when I’ve had to take Kim to the doctors, have given me rides to take care of a broke down car, provide invaluable moral support, and so on. To borrow from the title of Hillary Clinton’s book, It Takes a Village. It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to care for a loved one.
So, I think it is useful to look at the liberal blogosphere as a special village, a global village of sorts, to borrow from McLuhan. Working with the Lamont campaign, I’ve seen the great things that can happen when nationally known bloggers work closely with local bloggers, and with people who haven’t even read a blog yet. So, when I read about Matt or Chris getting bored, I worry. They are important parts of our liberal global village. When I read about bloggers feeling left out, I worry, they too are important parts of our liberal global village.
I’m sorry to get all mushy on you and stuff like this, but this is really important. We need to find ways to work together to help our country rediscover a government, of, by, and for the people. a country where everyone’s voice is important. We need to uphold people like Matt and Chris. We need to connect with bloggers that aren’t feeling connected. We need to raise up a new generation of bloggers.
Jeffery Feldman has some good ideas on this, as does Terrance at The Republic of T. I want to thank them for what they are doing. I want to thank people standing by Matt and Chris, and especially I want to thank everyone who has stood by Kim and I while we battle her Lyme disease.
Blogging at 37
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 09/19/2006 - 22:08(Cross posted at Greater Democracy)
Back when I was in college, Jerry Rubin visited my campus as part of a book tour promoting his book, “Growing (up) at 37”. Some of my friends protested his visit with signs saying “Cashing in at 37”. I really didn’t pay close enough attention, so I have no opinion about whether he was growing up, cashing in, or a little of both.
Years later, during my cashing in period, I worked with a management consultant who pointed me to Joseph Campbell’s book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. During a particularly difficult period we talked about the return of the hero. After the hero’s life changing adventures, he returns to his town and teaches and helps those around him to learn from his experiences.
These provide a backdrop to part of my understanding of some of the larger issues embedded in the recent discussions about certain A-list bloggers meeting with former President Clinton.
Over the past few years, the community of progressive bloggers has grown stronger and more powerful. I have seen much of that power first hand with my work for the Lamont campaign. The power elite of bloggers that were invited to the Clinton meeting represent to many people the heroes of this new community, and the question that sits in many people’s minds is, will they be growing up at 37, and exhibiting the traits of the returned heroes, will they be cashing in at 37 taking from the community that has made them strong, or a little of both. It is my hope that most of them will wear the mantle of returned hero proudly and continue to help build the community and to nurture new bloggers.
Yet I’m not part of that group. Tens, if not hundreds of people read what I write. I hope my assorted posts around the blogosphere help a little bit here and there, but I don’t have the audience of the A-listers. I probably never will and that is okay.
But still, I too am driven by a desire to make this a better country, to promote progressive ideals, to get people to think and act in ways that Democrats should be proud of. So, what can I do?
What I think I do best is to help build bridges and to help train new bloggers. By building bridges, by exploring new online communities, by trying to help nurture them, I am doing the little I can. Terrence, of the Republic of T has a proposal for moving forward. It relates nice with Jeffrey Feldman’s proposal as well as a small amount of what I was driving at with this diary.
We can, and should, be looking at ways to build community, diversity and welcome new bloggers. Some of it may happen at YearlyKos 07. Some of it may happen at other events around the country. I just hope that all of us, from the mighty A-listers, to lowly bloggers like myself can work together to make this happen.
A Black Blogger, like me
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 09/18/2006 - 22:54(Cross posted at DailyKos)
I’ve been trying to get my mind around all the discussions that have happened after Peter Daou invited a bunch of his blogging friends to get together with Bill Clinton. One of the most interesting was an email from Terrence asking me what I thought of “some kind of central site for progressive POC bloggers”. One of the places I got to know Terrence was through the Progressive Blog Alliance where progressive bloggers cross post to drive more traffic to their own sites.
Why did Terrence write to me about this idea? Doesn’t he remember my melanin deficiency? For get the brown paper bag test, I’m about as white as those environmentally destructive white plastic shopping bags. About all I know about people of color is from a few experiences I had when I was young, and what I read on the blogs.
The New Elite in the Fourth Estate, you have the power, the danger of a new incumbency, and holding on to the long tail.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 09/17/2006 - 04:33(Cross posted at Greater Democracy)
Three years ago, many of us went to rallies where a presidential candidate told us, “You have the power”. We dutifully replied, “We have the power” and went about owning our newfound power in different ways. Some of us did what we were told as volunteers, some became leaders of new or revitalized Democratic clubs or local parties. Some of us went on to become candidates or even elected officials. Some of us are now incumbents running for re-election. Many of us found our voice online. Gov. Dean has gone on to become head of the DNC.
At a meeting in Burlington a year or so ago, I warned that as we became the new leaders, the new consultants, we also would become the new incumbents, and we faced the danger of acting out our own version of the line from Animal Farm, “All grassroots activists are created equal, but some or more equal than others.”
This has come home to me with the recent discussions of a meeting of bloggers with President Clinton. Two years ago, I was privileged to be one of the bloggers that received credentials to cover the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. I remember the blog posts back then about who got to go and who didn’t. It is a difficult issue when there are few slots available. Some of the posts sounded like people expressing their disappointment about not making the short list, but others raised important points about what the selection criteria was, or should have been.
Now, there is a similar discussion about the Clinton gathering. The Republic of T started it off. Liza picks up the ball and runs with it. Micah Sifry at Personal Democracy Forum and kid oakland, in a DailyKos diary explore the issue further.
The most blaring concern is the lack of racial diversity. This is a big problem that I cannot speak nearly as well as Liza can about, perhaps in part because of my own whiteness. Yet I suspect the lack of racial diversity is just the most blatant part of the problem. Micah writes about how “power is seductive” and “most of them [the invited bloggers] were pretty awed by the event”. The bloggers represented are the new elite of the fourth estate. They have a great number of readers. They are the high frequency population in a statistical distribution, and not the Long Tail.
The problem is, they also have the danger of being a monoculture. Part of the beauty of the long tail is the diversity, the hybrid vigor that it brings. So, I get worried when I read writeups about the event, such as Christy Hardin Smith saying, “we wanted to emphasize the need for better messaging and coordination/cooperation with blogs and the Democratic leadership”. Whose message is being coordinated?
Do we have a new elite in the fourth estate? Do we have grassroots activists that are more equal than others? Have we moved from Edward R. Murrow, whom the http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/murrowedwar/murrowedwar.htm >Museum of Broadcast Communications describes as “the most distinguished and renowned figure in the history of American broadcast journalism,” and Walter Cronkite, “the most trusted man in television news” to a new generation?
Perhaps. Yet the long tail remains. The belief that all of us have the power, and not just a select few, remains. The belief that anyone can start a blog and get their voice heard remains. Yes, there is the problem with getting people to read our little blogs. There is the big problem of the digital divide. The voices that we really need to hear, the voices of the dispossessed, the disabled and the disenfranchised, regardless of their race, do not have access to blogs, and if they do, know one ever finds their blogs. Perhaps Winston Smith was right when he wrote, “If there is hope, it lies in the proles”. Perhaps what really matters isn’t lunch with a former President to better coordinate messaging, but helping at a Community Technology Center to bring new voices online.
I’ve looked at blogs from both sides now, from win and lose, and still somehow, it’s blogs’ illusions I recall. I really don’t know blogs, at all.
Zephyr and LonelyGirl
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 09/16/2006 - 16:36(Cross posted at Gather)
As I as driving home from the store this afternoon, I heard an interesting juxtaposition on the NPR show, On the Media. I tuned in during their interview with Zephyr Teachout, director of the Sunlight Foundation. The Sunlight Foundation has been working with a lot of really interesting projects such as The Punch Clock Campaign, which is encouraging elected officials to post their daily schedule online, and Congresspedia. I’ve been told they are also helping fund ReadtheBill.
Key messages of the interview were about the importance of strengthening the relationship between citizens and their representatives and changing the behavior of citizens to get involved in political life in more ways than just voting.
I became friends with Zephyr back when she was working on Gov. Dean’s 2004 presidential bid. The idea of increasing citizen involvement has been a consistent through line in her work.
I was struck by the article that On the Media followed this with. The rise and fall of YouTube sensation, lonelygirl15 was discussed. They spoke of lonelygirl as participatory art and interviewed an expert in collaborative play. Complaints about the whole lonelygirl experiment were that it wasn’t transparent enough, it wasn’t authentic about its inauthenticity, and perhaps most interestingly, that it never gave the public a chance to fully and actively participate in the game.
When you bring the two articles together, they make particular sense. Our government hasn’t been giving the public a chance to actively participate in the game of politics. It has become too much of a big money, lobbyist, inside Washington incumbents’ game. It isn’t transparent enough. It isn’t authentic enough.
The Punch Clock Campaign is a great start, but is it enough? Back in May, Tom Watson wrote about Ned Lamont as the YouTube Senator, in part because of the great success of the Ned Lamont group there. Senator Edwards’ leadership PAC has a videoblog. Yet these are all campaigning, and not governance.
When I worked as Blogmaster for the John DeStefano campaign, people would ask him, and me, if he would have a blog if he gets elected Governor. We both said we hoped so. But perhaps, that isn’t enough anymore. Who will really be the first YouTube Senator? SenLamont? Not only putting his daily schedule online, but also posting a personal videoblog about what went on in the Senate? How about the first YouTube President? Prez44? Talking about what has gone on in the Rose Garden and the Oval Office the way lonelygirl15 talked about the hike she went on?
As a side note, I did write a blog post, Like Joe is so Emo, talking about the video Hope is Emo, and thinking about Sen. Lieberman in the context of YouTube culture.
Perhaps, if we get elected officials communicating with the electorate via something like YouTube, we can give the public a chance to actively participate in the game of our governance in a way that no one yet has imagined. I think this would be a wonderful thing.
Full disclosure: I was BlogMaster for the DeStefano campaign in 2005. During 2006, I have been working with the Lamont campaign as Technology coordinator. I have been in discussions with people close to Sen. Edwards about possibly working with his campaign in the event that Sen. Edwards decides to run for President in 2008, and I’ll be speaking on a panel with Zephyr on Oct 7th at the Action Coalition for Media Education conference in Burlington, VT.
