Blogging and Dissident Media

Society’s advancement of communication technologies creates more outlets for the voices of others to speak their minds and let people know about what is going on. Some of the foundations of this country rely on the ability and freedom to communicate all sides of an issue. As we move forward in the 21^st century, people see blogging as the next and newest form of a counter message to society. Blogging faces many challenges in order to accomplish this task.

In an opinion editorial piece in the Los Angeles Times on the 19^th of August 2007, Michael Skube wrote about how bloggers create a lot of noise, but do not back up their statements with journalistic style fact-checking. Though Skube’s point may not necessarily be true, Skube’s statement and sentiment brings up a more pressing point about how blogging is treated within mainstream society. The general statement in society is that bloggers are highly opinionated people who yell about issues/problems that may or may not exist.

In an article for the Columbia Journalism Review, Matt Welch writes about how people were fed-up with mainstream media and how ineffective they were at reporting what happened after September 11, 2001. Welch believed that this event caused the explosion of interaction within the blog-sphere. Welch correlates that this explosion of interaction gave blogging more credibility within mainstream media.

The problem with Welch’s position is that he assumes the blog-sphere gained credibility with the increase of bloggers. Welch does not take into consideration the idea that people who blog may not be people who want to be these citizen journalists that take up causes and try to be good journalists and uncover stories. Welch does not take into account people who just want to sound off about an issue and not really fact check or people who blog about personal items or non-political subjects, like sports and entertainment.

This is the quandary blogging faces as it moves on through the century. Blogging has the potential to become a more trust worthy place to receive news and be the new form of dissident media in the world. The major problem would be that those bloggers who try to be legitimate and trust worthy would have to disassociate with other bloggers and become their own entity. But since there is this concept of a blogging community or the blog-sphere, it seems unlikely any rift will occur.

Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, responded to Skube’s L.A. Times op-ed piece with a counter argument. In the op-ed piece, Rosen listed off more then a dozen names of bloggers who were doing the old school investigative journalism that Skube called for in his op-ed piece.

What will most likely happen is that blogging will become integrated with other social web interactions like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, creating something that resembles the end of the flash animation Epic 2015. In the flash animation, they predict a huge communications war between Microsoft, the conglomeration of Google and Amazon, and the New York Times. The future of the internet and blogging will be completely personalized to what we want and what we find interesting in the world.

Since this will most likely be the fate of blogging, it would be very difficult to classify blogging as a true dissident medium. If certain respectable blogs were to remove the blog umbrella from their identity, then they would be dissident. But blogging as a whole will not be dissident due to the fact that so many other things encompass blogging.

I personally tried my hand at creating a blog, but the blog only proved my idea about how blogging is not necessarily dissident. It was a sports blog and how I felt about certain issues in the major sports I liked. In no way shape or form was I trying to be dissident with this blog. This was only for my personal amusement and trying my hand at blogging. A lot of times, I did not even feel like writing a post for the blog. It felt like another class assignment I had to do. It also did not help that before coming into this class, I did not read any actual blogs that could be found on blogspot.

My Broadcast Journalism I class also created a blog, but for the shear purpose of posting the podcast we created onto the internet for people to listen to. Our goal was to get this out to as many people as possible. The stories we wrote and talked about were all mainstream stories, but they were taken with more of an alternative flare. Now our podcast is now up on iTunes and everyone can listen to it. So we have become more of an alternative source of mainstream news and not dissident, though we had no intention of being dissident.

The blog-sphere has the potential and desire to be dissident, but due to the over-arching umbrella that blogging covers, it can only become personal information or alternative sources of mainstream media. Dissident media will use the internet and blogging as part of an overall arching concept that the newspaper industry uses by combining print editions, web editions and word of mouth of their story and other information. This is how the new of dissident information will be spread across the world.

You would think that something as high-tech as blogging would be an easy feat to overcome. With such smart minds in our university, you would think that thirty or so college students would get it right. You would think something James Kotecki can do in his bathtub (Kotecki, James) that we would be able to do it with full concentration. However, there were definitely some differing views on the blog. Why couldn’t we all just get it to work? Whatever the case may be, if it did or didn’t work, I’ve gained more of an understanding of the blogging and online culture. There is always a lesson to be learned with every experience you go through.

Most people would say that this was an utter failure. They would say that the blog was just a mess, a cluster of random posts smashed together about an array of topics that really didn’t have any relevance to each other whatsoever. I would have to agree with the observations made, and that there was no actual dialogue between any of our classmates. Just because people get their opinions out there doesn’t mean that anyone is reading them.

The fact that there is no dialogue between the bloggers and the bloggers with the outside world makes this blog not really a blog. Jeff Jarvis, a popular blogger with BuzzMachine, says in an interview with ponyter.org that “news is a conversation, not just a lecture. The story doesn’t end when it’s published, but rather just gets started as the public begins to do its part – discussing the story, adding to it, and correcting it” (Outing, Steve).

However, the same thing that diminishes the whole idea of a blog also gives it strength to the argument that it actually worked. There has always been talk of a “marketplace of ideas,” and blogging just enhances that reality. It’s so easy nowadays to just sit at your computer and post something you feel passionate about on a webpage. Getting an idea out there is more accessible to everyone. Since more and more blogs are being made, the word about certain issues can reach the officials in government and actually make a difference.

But, I digress; most of the blogging experience was thwarted by the apathy of the class as a whole. Most students saw this as more of a grade then as a way to propel social change. If you want an online revolution, there needs to be a passion to want to change it. Also, half of the class was apathetic about politics since the beginning (myself included). If we don’t have anything constructive to write about an issue (if we don’t know much about it, if we think it’s boring, etc.), then the blog crashing and burning was inevitable.

The blogging that counts is always by someone who has shown an interest in politics (or whatever they’re blogging about) their whole lives. We saw this with Josh Wolf, who got arrested for his actions as a blogger. In an interview with his mother, she said that “even in high school, he was standing up for things that weren’t considered popular” (Kurtz, Howard). In high school, what most people would consider the normal behavior of a student was not what Josh Wolf exemplified. He was not a “normal” kid when growing up.

If the more vocal members of the class would have spoken up and sparked a little fire in the hearts of the rest of the class, the blog project may have worked better. If there was a reason deeper than a grade for people to post new and exciting things, then the buzz of our blog would have been larger. As we have seen with many of the dissident presses in our nation’s history, getting together an army of people who think the same thing and the same way is the only way that any change will occur.

Even though much of my blog experience was pretty crappy, there was a lot that I learned about the power of the online word. With mainstream news stories, they feel so rehearsed and cookie-cutter. With blogging, the writing is very raw and people are allowed to say whatever they want. There’s no editing by a higher power. It’s just you and the words. There is so much editing in mainstream news companies that the voice of the reporter could be censored by their bosses. Blogging allows the blogger to be their own boss on how things should be done.

Since blogs are so easy to find online, the audience that reads these blogs may not have read it if it wasn’t for accessibility. The less popular ideas are given the spotlight they deserve through the invention of the blogosphere. The “marketplace of ideas” is in full effect with the online world. The structure of a blog is so much less intimidating for the audience as well, so this is another reason why these unheard of ideas are being pushed the forefront, and the people with the small voices can finally be heard by the big dogs.

All was definitely not lost; I can’t stress this enough. Our words and thoughts are permanently etched onto a webpage that everyone who has a computer can access. Although most of us are not experts in any fields, someone might stumble upon our small little blog and say, “Hey, this person has a point!” The point of a blog is to bring about social change, and with every set of eyes that lays their sight onto our blog, then the mission of the blog has been fulfilled. Changing one person’s opinion at a time may be a little long to bring about any sort of revolution, but it’s still one opinion that was changed because someone made a good argument on a blog. Taking baby steps is still moving forward.

Kotecki, James. “James Kotecki.” James Kotecki. 28 Nov. 2007. 30 Nov. 2007

http://jameskotecki.com/.

Outing, Steve. “Poynter Online – What Journalists Can Learn From Bloggers.” Poynter.Org. 20

Dec. 2004. 30 Nov. 2007 .

Kurtz, Howard. “Jailed Man is a Videographer and a Blogger But is He a Journalist?…”

Washingtonpost.Com. 8 Mar. 2007. 30 Nov. 2007 .

Blog Paper
The blogosphere is one of the most recent and sweeping changes in modern day communication. Blogging is the simple practice of posting one’s ideas, stories, or basically anything on the internet. Through posting blogs, people are able to get their ideas heard and connect with other like-minded individuals. Blogs cover every topic under the sun—from recipes to coverage of the Iraq War. A unique aspect of blogging that has contributed to its booming popularity is the fact that anyone can blog. It’s simply a matter of getting online, visiting a blogging website, and posting a blog. There are no credentials necessary and people can write whatever they want, whether informative, accurate, or neither.
This new media has already transformed the news. Bloggers are able to instantly get news stories out to the public. Live-blogging (going out to an event and blogging as it is happening) is gaining popularity, especially while America is gearing up for the elections. The 2008 Presidential election is keeping the bloggers busy, and this is seen most clearly in video blogging. Candidates have been getting online and releasing videos for the public. You Tube is just another facet of the blogging world.
Through both print and video, people are spreading their ideas and getting their voice heard. This is making Big Media nervous. “We’ve owned the printing press for centuries; not the people have the power of the press [through blogs]. They are speaking and it’s our turn to listen and engage them in conversation” (Outing 7). The general public has taken matters into their own hands and, after the massive journalistic failures and shortcomings revealed in the Iraq war coverage, maybe it’s for the best. But blogging does compromise integrity; there are no guidelines or ramifications for lying. It is this freedom that inspires bloggers to continue—they will never be censored for saying what they believe. Also, the blogging world is a new way to find undiscovered talent. “You’ve got tens of thousands of potential columnists writing for free, fueled by passion, operating in a free market where the cream rises quickly” (Welch).
Big Media is facing a lot of problems. According to a poll conducted earlier this year, more than half of Americans say “US news organizations are politically biased, inaccurate and don’t care about the people they report on” (E&P). This shows the trend of disenchantment and disinterest in mainstream media outlets. 24 news channels and newspapers are losing their credibility. They are no longer the only source for information for the people. Blogs are a way to actively engage the public; to continue examining the story even after it’s published. This interactivity is the exact thing Big Media is lacking. Corporations are interested in merging and money, whereas people are interested in stories. Blogs are much more honest and transparent, though not always more accurate. Through posting a blog, a conversation is started and the public is needing more conversation and a little less action.
While blogging is helping information get out and enabling people to get involved, it’s not always a good thing. People can post whatever they want, regardless of relevance or accuracy. There are no journalistic standards and, while this can help people get their voices heard, it can also lead to misinformation. During the 2004 Presidential election, Wonkette.com printed false rumors about John Kerry knowing that they were most likely fictitious. When asked why, bloggers stated “I publish anything because I can” (Outing). This statement shows that blogging is much more about the freedom to publish the news than the accuracy of the news. Despite the lack of regulations regarding fact-checking, blogs are often very credible and informed. They’ve been instrumental in breaking stories that big media ignores. Without the blog world and other means of communication, even such recent controversies like the Jena 6 may have stayed under the radar.
In order to learn more about the blog world, we created a blog at Talkmonkey. The goal of our blog was to encourage political debate. This format allowed us to post ideas and for other classmates to respond to these opinions and offer their insight. We tracked the blog’s growth in class and were able to see that quite a few people were looking at our blog. The experience taught me the impact that blogs could have. Simply by typing in a Google search, people can stumble upon blogs and their ideas and views can be challenged. It’s a unique environment that encourages creativity, critical thinking, and skepticism. These elements have been lacking in Big Media for quite sometime, and the public has responded with blogging.
Critical Theory teaches the importance of questioning the dominant paradigm. Blogs seek to fill the gaps that have been made in the fabric of media. They’re working to reclaim reason, unmask power, and contest hegemony (Brookfield). The blog world provides a free marketplace of ideas, unfettered by power and regulations. This new, independent media is both exciting and terrifying. The power of the internet is growing and blogging is at the forefront of this movement. Whether for or against it, blogging is the wave of the future.

Today the majority of the information that people consume is through the mainstream media. In fact, many people think that mainstream news is the only way to really obtain information at all. However, people of younger generations and people whose views are critical of this system have begun to take notice within the past few years, that there are other options. Blogging, do to its accessibility and in some cases dissident nature, has become a great tool for activists, and has been useful in getting important issues of social justice heard. It truly has become the newest outlet for dissident media.

There is debate about blogging’s credibility as a form of journalism. The purpose of journalism is to get important stories out there for the public to know about. Blogs, in many cases, as well as other alternative publications are, in fact, responsible for breaking important stories that at first were viewed by the mainstream media as unimportant or too controversial to report. It’s obvious that the mainstream media won’t cover issues of social justice due to the fact that their main source of income, advertising, is funded by the very entities that are the cause of many injustices.

When corporate capitalists are funneling in money and keeping mainstream media outlets above water, the programming of these outlets becomes predictable and in a way censored. With car commercials and gas companies’ advertisements, how often does the public hear about global warming on the six o’clock news, despite the fact that it is important and it affects everyone? So now the question is if the mainstream media won’t cover important issues is it really credible? I would say not.

There are blogs that are not credible sources either, however, once a blog gains credibility and notoriety, the blog can participate in some pretty important reporting. There are many issues that aren’t touched by the mainstream media prior to being blogged about. For instance Faye Anderson who considers herself a citizen journalist, “blogs about illegal immigration constantly and wrote extensively about the Jena Six case well before MSM started covering the racial conflicts…She credit black bloggers, alongside black radio, with closely following the story.” (Vargas) Also with the mainstream media being very anti-Chavez and not as inclusive of news about Latin America, there are blogs such as the Latin American News Review that offer another side of the story.

Of course not all blogs very credible and most are not used as journalistic outlets. Michael Skube questioned the credibility of blogs, and wrote of how some non-credible blogs bring all other blogs’ credibility into question. If one really considers this an argument than one might question CNN’s credibility when the E! channel airs nothing but shallow gossip and rumors about celebrities. This argument doesn’t really hold water.

With the growth and popularity of the Internet, journalism is also more accessible to people who not only might not have the most popular opinions, but have very little money. Blogging has really revolutionized dissident media because it’s cheap. In Streitmatter’s book, in almost every chapter there were stories of how dissident publications had trouble staying afloat with the denial of most advertising revenue. Printing and distributing is expensive. With blogging, both of these aspects of publishing are free.

In the United States it is the Constitutional right of the people to the freedom to speak, assemble, and “the existence and toleration of a diversity of ideas and opinions within the free press”. John Stuart Mill advocated for a free marketplace of ideas. With a homogenous mainstream media, blogs are covering what they are not, enriching journalism in this country, as well as all over the world. Blogs are the voices of those without the funding to publish in print, and those voices come from a much different place that aren’t clouded with special interest groups agendas.

Blogs also are accessible to people all across the world. The Internet is easy to use and free to look at, minus a monthly wireless subscription. With only a few keystrokes people can have access to all kinds of news, minus the ninety-nine cents per article one has to pay to read the New York Times online. Also many young people today spend hours on the Internet. Even spending one day without it seems impossible. (Walker) Knowing how dependent people, particularly younger generations are on technology, this is great way to gain readership.

Also another great aspect of using the Internet to broadcast one’s thoughts is that it reaches across national borders. The video blog of Comandante Marcos of the Zapatistas awing revolutionaries everywhere and even our own blog that got hits from around the world is proof that blogs have a unique way of communicating internationally.

There are many things that make blogging an optimal form of dissident media. There’s a backlash due to a non-credible homogenous mainstream media, that leaves people looking for news elsewhere. Blogs are free and have no publishing cost, and blogs cast a wide net of readership with their accessibility via the World Wide Web. Blogs are the newest avenue of publishing for activist journalists everywhere, and no matter how disenfranchised someone is or how far away someone is, blogs allow people to be heard.

Sources

1. Skube, Michael. “Blogs: All the News That Fits.” The Los Angeles Times 19 Aug. 2007.
2. Vargas, Jose A. “Storming the News Gatekeepers.” The Washington Post 27 Nov. 2007.
3. Walker, Danna. “The Longest Day.” The Washington Post 5 Aug. 2007.

Kristi Warren 11/29/2007 Blog Paper

Three years into my print journalism major and I have realized that I grimace every time a professor utters the word “blogosphere.” It’s an unconscious reaction. It’s not that I dislike the blogosphere. On the contrary, I think the blogging world has made the whole field of journalism incredibly exciting and dynamic. Unfortunately several of my past professors—stricken with fear of their field being driven obsolete by a writer professionally known as Gnarlygirl27—have rammed the negative aspects of the blog down my throat. Therefore I was very pleased to be able to form my own opinion about the value of the blogging medium.

Blogging is a valuable form of dissident media. According to Rodger Streitmatter’s Voices of Revolution, in order for a publication to be dissident “it not only had to offer a differing view of society but also had to seek to change society in some discernible way. … The publication’s primary purpose must have been, in short, to effect social change.” (Voices of Revolution, pp. xi) The blogosphere not only does this in a democratic way, but is convenient, uncensored and analytical. I’ve come to this conclusion through past knowledge, research and my own personal experience adding to the blogosphere on http://talkmonkey.blogspot.com/ .

As a form of dissident media, the universality of the blogosphere is unprecedented. The best thing about the internet is that anyone can write a blog. Unlike typical contributors to traditional forms of dissident media, someone’s age, experience and formal education are never an obstacle. All one needs is access to a computer. The internet provides a truly democratic forum for the average person to express themselves.

On the other hand, the worst thing about the internet is that anyone can write a blog. This has consequences to the quality of what is posted online. In Emerging Altenatives: Blogworld, a discussion of the merits of blogging as journalism, Matt Welch adds this qualifier, “Which is not to say that 90 percent of news-related blogs aren’t crap.” My internet-phobic professors drove this point home: Everyone’s airheaded little sister and cat-obsessed neighbor can start a blog. Posting your diary online is not news, nor is copying and pasting from the New York Times and writing snippy comments.

Welch puts this into perspective though, “First of all, 90 percent of any new form of expression tends to be mediocre (think of band demos, or the cringe-inducing underground papers of years gone by), and judging a medium by its worst practitioners is not very sporting.” I think if mainstream publications don’t have to be equated to tabloids then blogs should not be lumped into one category either.

And those who disregard the influence of the amateur blog writer must keep in mind the concept of “spheres of influence.” Just like dissident publications of yesteryear, blogs can push overlooked issues into the forefront of the public consciousness.

Advancements in technology have paved the way for the role of the internet in dissident coverage. Now anyone with a camera-phone can conveniently provide the public with first hand footage directly to the net. It’s easier to post articles, pictures, video and podcasts to the internet than trying to establish a dissident newspaper, radio program or public television station. One also reaches a wider audience and gains attention faster. James Kotecki began posting in early 2007 and he has already garnered enough attention to warrant his own Wikipedia entry . No longer does an aspiring journalist have to undergo years of schooling, internships and beat reporting to write something that will effect social change.

The lack of strict censorship rules decreases the sense of culpability but increases the likelihood of hearing both sides of a contentious issue. My first experience with a news blog was reading www.bartcop.com after the big media began pushing the white house’s agenda about weapons of mass destruction. Bartcop.com is a radically anti-conservative blog which would lead one to question its reliability if it was a traditional news source. Yet the website was very vocal and persuasive with its evidence of lack of WMD evidence. Websites like bartcop.com are examples of why blogging will continue to be a prevalent dissident form. There are always several sides to an issue and the internet makes it that much easier to hear what the other side has to say.

I was nervous about posting blogs to the talkmonkey site. Exposing my views to the world was daunting as the internet can be very permanent despite its transient reputation. I avoided posting anything about my personal political affiliations and focused on analyzing the behavior of prominent political figures and scholars. I don’t necessarily think what I wrote about was dissident to what the mainstream was putting out. I did try and go more into depth and explore areas that the mainstream didn’t cover, in particular with the snubbed minority-hosted republican debate.

I think I have come to appreciate the tenacity of the dissident blogger. It is difficult to be dissident. It requires more than shaking your head at everything the mainstream puts out. It requires analysis and an activist’s sensibility. One has to realize what the mainstream is not covering, point it out, and then go and cover it. It has motivated me to start my own blog and make it news worthy. It has also made me regain my appreciation for the word, “blogosphere”.

Works cited:

“Renewing Political Debate.” Talkmonkey.Blogspot.Com. 30 Nov. 2007. American University. 29 Nov. 2007 .

Welch, Matt. “Emerging Alternatives: Blogworld.” Cjrarchives.Org. 2007. Columbia University Review. 29 Nov. 2007 .

“Bartcop’s Most Recent Rants: Political Humor and Commentary.” Bartcop.Com. 30 Nov. 2007. 30 Nov. 2007 .

Streitmatter, Rodger. Voices of Revolution: the Dissident Press in America. New York: Columbia UP, 2001. xi.

Ashley Murphy
Professor Walker
COMM 275
Blog Paper

All The News That’s Fit to Blog

Dissident media has evolved and greatly expanded with a great amount of help that can be accredited to the internet. Matt Welch writes in his article, “Blogworld and It’s Gravity: The New Amateur Journalists Weigh In,” that, “blogging technology has. . . given the average Jane the ability to write, edit, design, and publish her own editorial product,” (Welsh 22). Blogging and the internet has greatly improved the ability to express one’s opinion regarding virtually anything, however, it has also has stirred controversy over what is considered journalism and what is dissident.

The purpose of dissident media is to provide a different view on a topic. Merriam-Webster Online dictionary defines dissident as, “disagreeing especially with an established religious or political system, organization, or belief,” (Merriam-Webster Online). Dissident media was formed with the focus of showing stories in a different light than main-stream media as well as covering topics that main-stream media either does not cover or does not cover to its fullest. In the past, dissident media can be seen as pamphlets, radio broadcasts, and newspapers such as The Revolution (Steitmatter). Today the presence of these medias is still alive, yet the internet has become a center for dissident media especially blogs.

Blogs not only became a place for people to vent regarding an issue, blogs are now places that people write news stories and many are looked at in a professional light. Blogs have allowed citizen journalists to flourish and give internet users an option besides main-stream media news. The use of blogs on the internet allows readers to view and also write news on numerous stories that may not be found in main-stream publications and blogs also provide a sense of timeliness that newspapers cannot. As soon as news breaks, bloggers can write a news story and post it without the hassle of editors and having it printed in a paper. In many cases news blogs are a way for citizen journalists to “keep the media honest,” as Markos Moulitsas Zuniga says in an interview with Michael Skube (Skube). Skube writes that blogging implies “all the liberties of a traditional journalist but few of the obligations,” (Skube). The ability to voice an opinion to millions of people at a time without having to be a part of the New York Times or Washington Post is very powerful and blogs allow citizen journalists to do that.

However not all blogs can be looked at as serious forms of news and some blogs have discredited the name of those citizen journalists who do take blogging serious and use their blogs to provide the public with hard hitting serious new stories. Skube writes in his article, “Blogs: All the noise that fits” that, “bloggers now are everywhere among us, and no one asks if we don’t need more full-throated advocacy on the Internet. The blogosphere is the loudest corner of the Internet, noisy with disputation, manifesto-like posting and an unbecoming hatred of enemies real and imagined,” (Skube). For those embracing the crusade of making blogging a notable form of journalism, it is a bumpy road. The internet allows anyone to start their own blog, an emphasis on anyone, and some blogs hinder the cause of making blogging a serious form of journalism.

In the world of activism, blogs provide a source of constant communication regarding progression and news. They can also form a sort of pseudo community that allows people to participate without being close in actual proximity. Activist blogs can update participants with rallies, protests, and news regarding their cause. Yet if the issue is not seeing any progression or if no news is occurring regarding the issue it may be hard to post on a blog as a form of activism.

Although dissident media is a form of media that goes against the norms and is supposed to disagree with a larger system, it has become very main-stream. Blogs are no longer a form of media that is seen as out of the normal. They have been accepted and integrated into society and into the lives of news viewers. The aspect about blogs that still remains dissident is the ability to have a blog about anything the creator wants. Blogs as a whole are not a form of dissident media rather a blog dedicated to a specific topic may be seen as dissident.

Works Cited

“Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary.” Merriam-Webster Online. 28 Nov. 2001
.
Skube, Michael. “Blogs: All the Noise That Fits.” Los Anges Times 19 Aug. 2007. 23 Aug. 2007
.
Streitmatter, Rodger. Voices of Revolution. New York City: Columbia UP, 2001.
Welch, Matt. “Blogworld and It’s Gravity: The New Amateur Journalists Weigh In.” Columbia
Jounalism Review 42 (2003): 20-26.

Bryan Koenig
Dissident Media
Comm-275-001
Professor Walker
11-30-07

Blogs: A Unique Opportunity for Dissidence
Blogging is an extremely young concept, going back only as far as the origins of the internet. Dissident Media, the institution with which it is associated however has been around for centuries. The relation between these two is finicky and difficult to pin down. The problem with blogging is that we do not as yet have the luxury of historical perspective. We are looking at blogging in the here and now, and it is possible only to speculate how history will ultimately judge this fledgling media. The present perspective afforded us points to blogging as facilitating dissident press, not however as a dissident media in and of itself.
Blogging as a media of any kind, be it dissident, mainstream or otherwise, is like no form of communication anyone has ever seen. The power of the pen is more available to more people than at any point in history. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide have access to the internet, able to read blogs as well as create their own. Just fifty years ago, no one would have been able to conceive of such communicative abilities even in the wildest of their dreams.
People blog on every conceivable topic, and some that are well outside common conception. Such a huge diversity makes blogging a potential avenue for dissidence, but not by itself a part of the dissident press. The mainstream use dissident press just as much, if not more so than the dissident. Laymen and professionals alike clog the internet with blogs on comic books, movies, whale watching, firefighting, you name it and there is almost certainly a blog for it. Even professional journalists themselves are beginning to post blogs.
Some blogs and bloggers are decidedly dissident. The prime example are the citizen journalists who take the initiative to go out, gather information, conduct research and present detailed facts and persuasive arguments by which they fight for a myriad of causes, and from both sides of the political spectrum.
Whatever blogging is or is not, what can be said of it for certain is that without question, its power is growing rapidly. Faye Anderson’s acceptance into a presidential debate gives strong reason to agree with her postulation that “the debate about whether bloggers are journalists is over.”[1]
The single biggest problem with Anderson’s statement is that she is looking at blogging as a blogger invited to a presidential debate. Aside from being historical, the moment was also statistically insignificant. More blogs than anyone could ever hope to read in a single lifetime dot the internet, but only a sliver of a fraction of a percent were even considered as potential candidates for the debate. They are the citizen journalist bloggers like Anderson who bothered to take their role as far as possible, instead of the scantily researched and largely opinion based articles that constitute the vast majority of blogs.
As Steve Outing puts it, “with blogging, it’s up to the individual blogger. With no institution or organization watching over them and guiding their behavior, we can only hope that most bloggers adhere to a mission of accuracy and accountability.”[2] That is not to say that all journalists are respectable and truly of journalistic quality, only that a far greater percentage of them are considered as such as opposed to the blogging community.
For all its drawbacks, blogging as a dissident media outlet is a dream come true for every concerned citizen with internet access. An almost universal feature of dissident media is that from the labor papers of the 1800s to the feminist papers of the late 1900s, such publications were started by the disenfranchised and poorly funded outcasts of society and produced for little or no financial gain via cheap means of publication and distribution.[3]
In today’s day and age, there is no better example of such a financially lacking voice than that of blogs. Anyone who can afford a computer and internet access can blog. And their words can be distributed far beyond the walls of their home or hometown or even home country. The internet is the ultimate tool of distribution. Concerned, informed, well spoken and hard working people are taking notice and using this revolutionary tool. The internet allows people to undertake what Jay Rosen calls, “the patient sifting of fact, the acknowledgement that assertion is not evidence…the depiction of real life.”[4]
Rosen goes on to describe numerous instances where bloggers contributed immensely to mainstream discussion from their dissident perch. In some instances, it has been bloggers that have shined a light on internationally spanning issues, acting as the ultimate ideal of dissidence. In those cases, ordinary men and women outside of the journalist community became whistle blowers. Their voice was for all to hear as a citizen journalist, creating widespread talk and even change among the mainstream.
Before I started this project, I had little knowledge, understanding, experience or even opinion of blogging. About all I could say is that blogs had never occurred to me to be a powerful tool for influencing the mainstream. They seemed distant, unimportant and irrelevant. My news came from professional journalists at newspapers and TV stations. Now I realize the enormous power and importance of blogs. I admit that my own career plan is one of a mainstream journalist, but I think it’s important to consider all aspects of media, especially one growing as quickly as blogging.
How much if at all I made a difference as a blogger, I really couldn’t say. To my knowledge no one has given serious thought or effort to further exploring or solving any of the problems I’ve highlighted in my blog posts. I can however say with pride that our blog post appears repeatedly under a Google search for dissident media, starting on the second page.[5]
I know outsiders have viewed our blogs, and that alone provides me with a great deal of comfort. If someone read our blogs and gained a new perspective or insight into the political world, I think we’re well on our way to becoming dissident journalists. Instead of getting paid, we pay huge sums of money for this privilege. We do so out of a genuine concern for the state of political debate in the United States using a cheap and easily accessible means of publication and distribution available to us, and we make our arguments using carefully considered discussion and research.
Works Cited
“Dissident Media.” Google. 30 Nov. 2007 .
Outing, Steve. “What Bloggers Can Learn From Journalists.” Poynter Online. 23 Dec. 2004. 30 Nov. 2007 .
Rosen, Jay. “The Journalism That Bloggers Actually Do.” LA Times 22 Aug. 2007. 30 Nov. 2007 .
Streitmatter, Roger. Voices of Revolution. New York: Columbia UP, 2001. 3-256.
Vargas, Jose A. “Storming the News Gatekeepers.” Washington Post 27 Nov. 2007. 30 Nov. 2007 .

[1] Vargas
[2] Outing
[3] Streitmatter
[4] Rosen
[5] “Dissident Media”

Christopher Cottrell

November 30, 2007

COMM-275

The Blogosphere: A Modern Source of Dissidence

Dissident news sources have always coexisted with the mainstream media, if not always peacefully. The most significant advancement came recently, with the onset of the Internet. Today, available technology makes advocating social or political dissidence easier than ever. With the emergence of “web logs,” citizens have gained more control than ever over their institutions. Internet blogging provides the means to communicate thoughts and opinions, analyses and reactions, across enormous distances. The thousands of people who are online at any given moment can monitor anything from presidential debates, to the media coverage they receive, and do so instantly. This paper will examine the role bloggers play in affecting news coverage, and will determine to what degree web logs are a form of dissident media. It will also describe one student’s personal experience with sharing his ideas on a worldwide scale.

There is no single way to define a blogger. However, compared to a formal journalist, there are specific characteristics the journalist is expected to fulfill, i.e. attaining credible sources, doing sufficient research, and presenting unbiased facts to the general public. These traits set reporters apart from many online writers. A lack of these characteristics is often one of the main criticisms of bloggers. Without strict regulations, it’s true that anyone can be a blogger. In an article titled Few Turn to Blogs for News, Thomas Hargrove quoted a blogger as saying, “The best part of blogging is that anybody can say anything. The worst part, of course, is that anybody can say anything” (Hargrove). This has proven to be both advantageous and a burden to readers, who can find everything from solid news to meaningless gossip on the Web.

It is the John Does who place every bit of gossip on their Web sites (because they can) that give the blogosphere a bad name. In his article, What Journalists Can Learn from Bloggers, Steve Outing clearly identifies a negative aspect of such freedom, “Some bloggers are too quick to publish anything that falls into their laps—without bothering to vet the material to determine if it’s accurate, or to consider the consequences of publishing it” (Outing). In the gossipers’ defense, while inaccuracies in blogs are certainly not ideal, they have created an online atmosphere where critical thinking skills are more important than ever to possess. Citizens are learning that information must be subject to heavy scrutiny before taken as fact.

Scrutiny is the most fundamental component of critical thinking. If it is true that “Ninety percent of news-related blogs [are] crap” (Welch, Jensen and Reeves), then it is essential that readers take all information they encounter with a grain of salt—including material from blogs as well as the mainstream media. Recognizing that the “mass media are obviously central to the smooth functioning of hegemony” (Brookfield), is an important step in a critical approach to news gathering. A reader must remember that all major news outlets are themselves large corporations, subject to the pull of capitalism like any other business. It is the duty of bloggers to keep such hegemony in check. This is not always accomplished, thus readers must also read blogs through a critical lens.

Although bloggers do not always counter the mainstream media, they do enough to label this particular form of communication dissident. Sometimes bloggers are in agreement with the ideals of mainstream society; however, bloggers offer enough of a balance to the hegemonic media system, and clearly do so in a nontraditional way that they have earned themselves this classification.

While most critics do not ignore bloggers like those in our Dissident Media class, who do sufficient research, confirm sources, and offer intelligible yet alternative viewpoints in order to further the topic at hand, they tend to focus on the majority of blogosphere contributors who soil their credibility as writers with careless syntax errors. The people who cover newsworthy events, like our class did with the current political debates are for the most part a well-educated crowd.

We fulfilled our obligations of rejuvenating political debate by analyzing and critiquing its present forms, as well as the media’s coverage thereof. By doing so, we illustrated a key function of web logging: supervision of the mainstream media. In his Los Angeles Times article, Blogs: All the Noise that Fits, Michael Skube stressed the importance of bloggers keeping an eye on major news corporations, and predicted “bloggers becoming the watchdogs that watch the watchdog” (Skube). Finally the big dailies have someone to answer to who isn’t Big Business.

This is exactly why bloggers are not journalists, but merely part of the journalistic process. Blogging is an exercise in free speech, available to anyone with an internet connection—making it the most democratic form of media to date. Being a part of the current “information revolution” was an interesting experience. The task our class completed was targeted at a larger audience than most students are accustomed to, and for this reason alone it was significant. It taught us how to prepare our articles for a mass audience while simultaneously teaching us how interaction on an individual level can improve an argument by providing an opposing viewpoint.

By encouraging involvement, blogging forced us to stay informed and become active participants in the discussion. According to an article in last Tuesday’s Washington Post, “Independent of the candidates, voters…are interacting with the 2008 presidential election at an unprecedented level because of the Internet, YouTubing, Facebooking, Wikipedia-ing, et al” (Vargas). The article, Storming the News Gatekeepers, also went on to explain that the blogging wave has ushered in a new understanding of news; namely, that once something is published it is only the beginning, rather than the end of its media coverage. This allows for more complete and efficient news reporting. “Freedom of the press belongs to nearly 3 million people,” stated Matt Welch, author of Blogworld and its Gravity, reflecting on the ability of anyone with an Internet connection to publish their opinions (Welch, Jensen and Reeves). Blogging represents a whole new scale of communication; whereas print media typically has a limited number of authors, online blogging sites can potentially have thousands of different contributors.

With such a large number of potential contributors, a communication medium will inherently have more informal writers than a formal group of news gatherers, such as journalists. As stated above, the difference in writing styles is accounted for in the expected characteristics of professional reporters. Thus, thousands of online writers can contribute to the journalistic process, but only an elite fraction of them can be true journalists.

However, the flaws and inaccuracies associated with amateur bloggers have taught our society an important lesson. Namely, that all information, whether obtained from a formal news source or an informal blog, should be critically examined. It is the duty of the news media to make sure public institutions remain faithful to their citizens; as it is the duty of bloggers to make sure the news media is doing its job sufficiently. While these missions may seem righteous, the news media and some bloggers may have other agendas. Therefore, it is no one’s responsibility but our own to watch out for rouges in the system.

Participating in a form of dissident media directed at a mass audience was a rewarding experience. Regardless of whether our Talkmonkey project had an effect on the contemporary political debate scheme or not, in this student’s opinion—it was worth the trouble.

Works Cited

Brookfield, Stephen D. The Power of Critical Theory. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005.

Hargrove, Thomas. detnews.com. 1 9 2006. 1 9 2006 .

Outing, Steve. Poynter Online. 20 12 2004. 29 11 2007 .

Skube, Michael. Los Angeles Times Online. 19 8 2007. 23 8 2007 .

Vargas, Jose A. washingtonpost.com. 27 11 2007. 29 11 2007 .

Welch, Matt, Mallory Jensen and Jacqueline Reeves. Blogworld and its Gravity. New York, 9/10 2003.

Before this class I had never really thought much about the blog world. Less then a

decade ago there were almost no blogs in existence. It was not until 1999 when a company called

Pyra Labs, later bought out by Google, created a program called Blogger, making blogs simple

and easy to create for the masses.(Welch) I assumed bloggers to be mostly complainers and

people with too much time on their hands. I had never even heard of blogs such as Politico or

Technorati. It has now gotten to the point where I read updates from several different blogs a

day.

With the coalescing of the American media into fewer and fewer hands the ability of anyone to set up a blog has created a modern version of Wayland’s citizen journalists that were the core of The Appeal to Reason. As Prof. Rockwell pointed out the more corporate the media the less it tends to get into any issues that could potentially spark controversy. Thanks to blogs now anyone can share their views without fear of having their advertising pulled for controversial statements.

Whether or not blogging is actually dissident media depends entirely on your point of view. On one side you have bloggers themselves, many of the most important of which see themselves as members of the mainstream. Markos Moulitsas, the head of the popular Daily Kos, was quoted as saying “we are representatives of the mainstream.” (Skube) This is countered by members of the more traditional media sources. The subtitle of the article by Michael Skube “the hard-line opinions on weblogs are no substitute for the patient fact-finding of reporters” sums up much of the opinion of traditional journalists towards bloggers. (Skube) Many of these journalists view bloggers as little more then political hacks ranting about whatever they fancy and with little care for facts or the other side of the argument.

However as blogs get more popular the idea that all of them are simply pointless opinionated rants is becoming increasingly untenable. There are now numerous examples where blogs do indeed go out and do their own investigative reporting. The instances of this occurring are far too numerous to mention, but include bloggers going to Iraq to report on the war effort, as well as attending and reporting on all of the political debates and campaigns.

In most cases bloggers are unable to obtain the necessary financial backing to perform in depth journalism. For many of them there role is largely in keeping politicians and the larger news organizations honest. This has been shown to be true in several high-profile cases during the relatively short period of the blogospheres existence. The Drudge Report was the first to break the infamous Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998. More recently Dan Rather was fired from 60 minutes when bloggers questioned the authenticity of several documents Rather used in one of his reports.

Blogging can be a double edged sword. Some would argue that it is the be all end all of modern media, as corporate owned outlets focus evermore on starlets and their troubles. While not necessarily focusing on the issues as much as they should, most mainstream media outlets portray their news from a relatively middle ground. Blogs on the other hand tend to be very one sided. Politically biased blogs such as the Daily Kos and Red State, which each have received 10’s of thousands of mentions and links from other bloggers, are the most popular. (Vargas) This means that instead of getting both sides of the story blogs help to intensify the polarization that exists between America’s political factions.

The case of whether or not blogging is dissident media completely depends on the individual blog itself. While the idea of the blogosphere itself breaking away from traditional media is in itself dissident, the fact that it is becoming so mainstream means the title of dissident media now varies from blog to blog. Blogs such as Politico and Technorati would be considered relatively mainstream because while they both provide good well researched information, they say little that would upset or go against the ideas of the mainstream. However blogs like the Daily Kos routinely have things posted that create great alarm for television commentators such as Bill O’Reilly. I believe the future of blogging is incredibly bright. Without the need for multi-million dollar studios they are able to bring the news to the people for far cheaper then television or radio. This allows them to be less reliant on massive amounts of add revenue and get back to focusing on important events.

Blogging is media that is both enriching and detrimental.  The blogosphere provides a public forum for the discussion and dissemination of ideas and experience across the broad range of human experience.  It is a media that permeates everyday life and a crutch with which we rely on to supplement our increasingly large information appetites.  Michael Skube quotes Christopher Lasch in his article “Blogs: All the noise that fits,” that “ ‘What democracy requires…is vigorous public debate, not information.”[1]  Blogs are able to provide that public forum for debate, and also create the information that Lasch believes is needed.  However, blogs also present a danger: they are unregulated without editors or fact-checkers.  Steve Outing describes this in terms of ethics, “Part of the problem is lack of any community blogging standards that might discourage unseemly behavior.”[2]  This is a sticking point with many blogs; how can we know if they are published in good faith?  We cannot.  This is a huge problem in the nascent blogosphere.   As well, blogs may narrow our focus and allow us to pick and choose blogs that share our point of views.  As blogs become increasingly prominent, they cause a slant in unbiased information, nearly eliminating it from the public domain.  Though blogs allow for the sharing of ideas, they also represent a very real danger of disinformation.

            The blogosphere has several huge advantages, especially concerned with dissident media.  It is unregulated, allowing for the completely free expression of and access to all sorts of different ideas.  Anyone with access to the computer can blog and extensive networks of people from across the globe can coalesce easily around a common cause and blog.  In another Los Angeles Times article, Jay Rosen describes several blogs that do have investigative reporting, travel, and citizen involvement, “2005 to present.  Citizens construct Katrina timeline…. [They] created a detailed timeline…with over 500 evens, fact-checked and sourced.”[3]  Finally, it is incredibly cheap to blog.  The only fee is Internet access, and the potential public is huge without publishing costs.  “All you need to get started is a name, a password, and an email address,” describes Mallory Jensen in The New Age of Alternative Media[4].  This ease of access, and sometimes the anonymity, creates huge draws towards dissident blogs and brining those with opinions and facts that are often overlooked into the public forum. These advantages allow blogs to create a great deal of noise among the greater public, and provide greater access to the disenfranchised.

            However, blogs also pose several problems not often associated with traditional forms of media, mainstream or dissident.  One is the lack of editors and fact checkers.  Without these vital personnel, other media outlets would fall to pieces around sloppy productions.  People do not want to read, or see, productions riddled with mistakes or that are fabrications; editors provide the tools to make sure mistakes are kept to a minimum and that fabrications are rare.  Blogs, unencumbered by editors, are able to publish more controversial items, but are also often mired in the realm of bad grammar, inappropriate words, and blatant propaganda, though this is not always the case, as explained above.  As well, many blogs lack the resources and credibility of traditional media outlets (though this is slowly changing), which does not allow for very many in-depth articles or “serious” investigative journalist.  In the article “Blogs: All the noise that fits” from the Los Angeles Times bloggers themselves reject this authoritative stance, “[They]—are insistent partisans in political debate.  Some reject the label ‘journalist,’ associating it with what they contemptuously call MSM (mainstream media)…”[5] Finally, the ease of access allows anyone to blog, including propagandists, the un-informed, and those who simply do not care about facts.  This leads to a flooding of the blogosphere with useless information, again detracting from credibility.

            Our blog, concerning changing the format of political debate, is a great case study for both the pros and cons of blogs and the blogosphere.  The elements for a successful blog were all present: a current, controversial, and important topic, a clearly stated goal, and a diverse, intelligent, and vocal contributor base.  Yet, the execution of the blog was not exactly spectacular.  It was a slow upstart; often had too many posts that lack any sense of coherence, and did not often present a new take on the subject.  Oftentimes, posts were treated as simple assignments, made to earn a grade, instead of as a post that could affect the greater debate.  This casual treatment of the blog was its biggest downfall.  Blogs that make noise, such as James Kotecki’s video postings, almost always began as low-budget, amateur projects.  However, his blog especially, had an excitement about it, and took its subject matter in stride, and not as a school assignment.  As well, our posts, though centered on a central question, often had a sense of incoherence.  Topics varied greatly: from finance reform to the history of presidential debates to the role of music in campaigns.  Though the topics made for an interesting read week to week, they did not allow for a huge furthering of the political de*-bate discussion.  They presented various points of view and facts concerning the debate, but rarely engaged in any distillation or new ideas about the topic.

            Despite these shortcomings, the class blog did have many positive aspects.  The sheer amount of information gathered there allows readers to become informed about the various issues regarding the upcoming elections and the broken debate system.  Additionally, the blog has the air and feel of student activism, always preferable in fermenting change than mainstream media.  This falls in line with Matt Welch’s thinking about alternative press, “The papers once embraced amateur writers; now they are firmly establish in the journalist pecking order…[blogs] represent a crucial alternative to monolithic journalism establishment….”[6] We acted as new, amateur, young journalists, pulling facts together and posting our own ideas, creating excitement that was the hallmark of papers in the 1960s and 1970s (one only need read All The President’s Men).  As well, as our tracking showed, we had an audience that did not consist entirely of class members.  Though perhaps not as large as we would like, the impact our blog had on those readers cannot be underestimated.  Like other dissident media, if it inspires just one other person to actively seek change, a snowball can occur and change can happen.

            Blogging, though a new technology with many downsides, is the format of choice for new dissident media.  It allows easy, widespread publication, the possibility of huge networks, and a lack of oversight that appeals to the marginalized and disenfranchised.  Though it lacks some of the resources of earlier forms of media, professional editors and such, blogging offers a great deal of advantage for getting messages out, as Welch points out that bloggers have contributed, “Four things: personality, eyewitness testimony, editorial filtering, and uncounted gigabytes of new knowledge,” to journalism[7].

All sources are in-class, handouts provided by Professor Dana Walker.

 [1] Paragraph 8, “Blogs: All the noise that fits,” by Michael Skube