Title: The Politics of the Internet
1The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs, Politics and the Media
- Blogs (weblogs) a new form of publishing
somewhere between an online diary and a
collection of op-eds. - Have begun to play an important role as an
alternative medium of communication. - Millions of blogs out there on a huge variety of
topics how do they affect politics?
2The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- This weeks lecture blogs affect politics
through two key channels. - Indirect effects through their influence on
other media (primarily print media). - Direct effects to a lesser extent, have
political consequences in their own right. - Influencing political decisions.
- Organizing political action.
3The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IILecture Outline
- Studying blogs and the blogosphere.
- Examining their direct consequences for politics.
- Direct
- Indirect
- Case-studies
- Trent Lott affair
- Dan Rather affair
- Sinclair broadcasting
- Social security
- Conclusions
- Consequences in current elections
- Polarizing influence?
- Long term implications.
4The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIWhat is a blog?
- Difficult to define a blog in precise terms.
- Web page with minimal to no external editing,
providing on-line commentary, periodically
updated and presented in reverse chronological
order, with hyperlinks to other online sources - But some blogs dont fit this description very
well, while other webpages which arent blogs do. - To some extent, a question of self-identification
a website which identifies itself as a blog
probably is. - Most blogs have separate posts, and a blogroll
of external links as well as links within each
post.
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6The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- Blogs are relatively recent phenomena.
- Term coined by Jorn Barger of Robot Wisdom
(defunct early weblog). - First blogs were collations of links to whats
interesting on the web, with occasional
comments. - But minority pursuit less than 50 blogs by the
end of 1999.
7The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- Blogs began to grow exponentially from 2000 on.
- Aided by access to software that made it super
easy to blog even if you didnt know HTML. - Blogger.com (Blogspot) where most bloggers cut
their teeth.
8The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- Now perhaps 200 million blogs out there. Cover
a wide variety of different topics. - Knitting, diaries, politics, technology, writing.
- Political blogs have become increasingly
important over the last two years.
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10The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- How do blogs have influence?
- In order to understand this, we need to look more
closely at the political economy of the
blogosphere (the universe of blogs). - Blogs should not be conceived in isolation like
many other topics we cover this semester, their
effectiveness depends on the network that they
are embedded in.
11The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- Huge disparities in the blogosphere between more
popular and less popular bloggers. - More popular bloggers have many incoming links
and readers. - Less popular bloggers may have few or no incoming
links, and very few readers (friends their dog).
12The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IISkewed distribution of links
13The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- This has a number of key implications for the
relationship between blogs and politics. - (1) Some blogs count a lot more than others.
- More readers, more influential readers.
- (2) Less influential blogs can try to become more
influential but their best way to do this is by
getting big blogs to link to them.
14The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- Small blogs have an incentive to tell big blogs
about interesting stories or viewpoints. - Norm of attribution means that big blog is likely
to link back to the smaller blog if it goes with
the story (thus bringing more readers to the
small blog). - Big blogs have an incentive to play fair so
that smaller blogs will continue to send good
stories to them.
15The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- Similarly, readers will have an incentive to
concentrate their (initial) attentions on big
blogs. - They know that most interesting stories are
likely to percolate through to the big blogs from
the small ones. - Thus big blogs come to serve as a kind of filter
for interesting stories. - They become the gatekeepers between the
blogosphere and the outside world of readers.
16The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIIndirect Effects
- Blogs can have very important indirect effects on
politics through influencing the media. - There is substantial evidence to suggest that the
media is paying more and more attention to blogs
(especially the bigger ones). - Reporters and op-ed columnists say that they read
blogs and that these blogs sometimes influence
what they write.
17The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and the Media
- What does the mainstream media look for in
blogs? - Not usually new stories or information. (bloggers
arent reporters usually rely on the media for
information, although some bloggers have expert
knowledge). - Instead look for new viewpoints, new ways of
spinning stories or events, stories that perhaps
should have been given more play in the
mainstream media, but werent.
18How blogs influence journalists
- Thomas Edsall (Washington Post)
- We in journalism, there is an orthodoxy to our
thinking. Blogs can break the ice and make it
clear that there is something pretty strange or
pretty unique or pretty interesting or pretty
awful about something They open up a lot of
doors. - Survey evidence suggests that 83 of journalists
have used a blog, as opposed to 7 of the general
public.
19Other elite actors
- Other elite actors besides journalists read
blogs, and are influenced by them. - Federal court clerks
- Political activists
- Senate/House aides
- Senators? Congresscritters?
20Roberts confirmation
- Cornyn at Roberts hearing
- this hearing is a subject of a lot of activity
and interest in the blogosphere. One of these
blogs said that your comparison of a judge to a
baseball umpire reminded him of an old story
about three different modes of judicial reasoning
built on the same analogy. First, was the umpire
that says some are balls and some are strikes,
and I call them the way they are. The second
umpire says some are balls and some are strikes,
and I call them the way I see them. The third
said Some are balls and some are strikes, but
they ain't nothing till I call them. Well, I
don't know whether it's a fair question to ask
you which of those three types of umpires
represents your preferred mode of judicial
reasoning. But I wonder if you have any comment
about that. - Role of blogs in Miers nomination
21The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIDirect effects
- Increasingly, blogs are coming to have direct
effects too on politics. - Surveys suggest that 32 million Americans read
blogs. - Still a minority but in the future, they may
not need to rely on the media to shape politics. - Might communicate ideas directly to the public
and thus shape public perceptions of the issues
at stake.
22The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- Blogs have been used to raise money for
candidates and for political parties. - Much more common on left than right.
- While interesting, not enough money to change
national races (but may have real local
influence). - More interestingly, blogs have begun to organize
direct action in order to pressure businesses,
parties and individuals to take actions that they
otherwise might not take.
23The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- Again, big blogs play a key role here.
- Serve to aggregate information and resources.
- Direct readers (and other bloggers) to take
specific actions, providing necessary information
(email addresses, mail addresses, phone numbers
etc). - Report on results of actions, changing tactics as
appropriate to meet changing needs (perhaps
changing targets over time).
24The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIDirect and indirect combined
- Increasingly, blogs combine both forms of action.
- Indirect action efforts to interest media in a
particular outrage, or even to influence media
directly (especially common on right). - Direct action efforts to take effective action
against this outrage by boycotting, organizing
protests, etc etc.
25The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- 4 brief case studies in blogs and politics.
- Trent Lott affair.
- Dan Rather affair.
- Sinclair media boycott.
- Alberto Gonzales resignation.
26The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IITrent Lott affair
- Excellent example of how blogs can exercise
indirect influence. - Trent Lott made comments at Strom Thurmonds
birthday party indicating that he supported
Thurmonds racist, segregationist past policies. - This was not picked up properly by mainstream
media (mentioned briefly on ABC TV, and in ABCs
The Note, but died). - However, two weeks later to the day, Lott
resigned as Senate Majority Leader. Why? - In large part because of blogs.
27The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Trent Lott
- Blogs picked up on the Trent Lott, story,
beginning with Timothy Noah in Slate, and rapidly
spreading out through the left blogosphere. - Right wing blogs (Glenn Reynolds Instapundit,
Andrew Sullivans Daily Dish) began to pick up on
the story too, and demand that Lott resign. - This prompted newspaper journalists (Edsall at
the Washington Post) to pick up the story again
and investigate it properly.
28The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IITrent Lotts Resignation
- Within a few days, there was a media firestorm
while blogs had provoked the initial reaction, it
only really began to be politically salient when
mainstream media picked it up. - Lott sought to explain and to apologize (first
through his spokesman, then in person on Black
Entertainment Television), but did a very bad
job. - Republican party began to canvas for an
alternative Senate leader and pushed Lott into
resigning his position.
29The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIDan Rather affair
- On September 8, Dan Rather ran a story on CBS
claiming that it had memos showing that George W.
Bush had gotten preferential treatment in the
Texas National Air Guard. - This could have had important consequences for
the election. - However, it swiftly became clear that there were
problems with the memos. - Their provenance was fishy, and they appeared to
have been typed using modern equipment, rather
than the kinds of typewriter available in the
1970s.
30The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIMS-Word and Typewriters
- This was established relatively quickly by right
wing blogs in the immediate aftermath of the 60
minutes episode. - Showed that it was possible to recreate the
documents quite easily using MS-Word. - In some ways, a perfect story for bloggers
(Steven Berlin Johnson) they didnt have to
stray very far from their keyboard to do the
necessary research.
31The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- Dan Rather and CBS tried to maintain the
veracity of their story over the following days. - Again story made its way into the mainstream
media, and became much more politically topical
when it did. - But facts continued to come out that suggested
problems (CBS own experts were unsure at best
the documents had come from someone with a known
grudge against Bush). - Within a couple of weeks, Dan Rather resigned.
- After an internal investigation, CBS fired others
involved in producing the show.
32The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IISinclair broadcasting group boycott
- Sinclair Broadcasting Group announced in October
that it would require affiliate stations to
broadcast Stolen Honor, a documentary attacking
John Kerry. - Had previously refused to broadcast an episode of
Nightline with names and photographs of troops
killed in Iraq war. - Caused some public criticism but story died
down quickly.
33The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IITalking Points Memo and others
- However, Josh Marshalls Talking Points Memo, a
popular left wing blog, decided to organize a
boycott along with other prominent left wing
blogs (borrowed an idea from a smaller blog, the
Left Coaster). - Another individual formed a website called
BoycottSBG.com. - Other blogs took up the story and started
spinning it to mainstream media.
34The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- BoycottSBG.com proved a key resource a list of
advertisers on Sinclair with contact details. - Encouraged readers to contact advertisers and
(politely) deplore their relationship with
Sinclair stations. - Also targetted pension funds with investments in
Sinclair.
35The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Politics
- Caused a substantial fall in Sinclairs
stock-price and a backing down by Sinclairs
management. - Sinclair recast the documentary, so that it would
give a less biased and more scrupulous account of
Kerrys war record. - The coalition of bloggers and others who had
targetted Sinclair evaporated swiftly, declaring
victory. - Here, emphasis was not on framing the issues for
the mainstream media but on direct action
against Sinclair.
36The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IISocial Security
- 2006 battle surrounding Social Security.
- Again, Josh Marshalls Talking Points Memo and
other left wing blogs had interesting political
consequences. - For the Democrats to win their battle on Social
Security, they had to - (a) avoid any defections on their side on Social
Security. - (b) try to break down the Republican coalition in
the Senate and Congress on Social Security.
37The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIBlogs and Framing
- First, left-wing blogs (TPM, Brad DeLong, Matt
Yglesias) created new ways of framing the issues
of Social Security. - Suggested that it involves incompatible
assumptions about growth. - These frames were taken up in the media, via
pundits like Paul Krugman who had strong
connections to the blogosphere. - And then became established as legitimate points
of view in the media debate on the topic.
38The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIName and Shame
- Second, Talking Points Memo named Democratic
politicians who appeared to be considering
supporting Social Security reform and shamed
them into backing down. - Also highlighted Republicans who are against
reform. - This had clear effects the Democratic party saw
far fewer defections than in similar instances in
the first administration and some Democratic
politicians thanked the blogs for this. - Both indirect and direct methods were used.
- This time it was the Democrats but there is no
reason why the Republicans and right leaning
blogs cant do the same thing. - Porkbusters campaign.
39The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIConclusions
- What are the long term implications of blogs for
politics? - Some interesting implications.
- Lowering of costs to voice.
- Polarization of politics?
- Replacement of traditional gatekeepers.
- Changing in norms of journalism.
- Lowering of transaction costs for political
action. - Limits of blogs.
- Advent of new technologies (YouTube)
40The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IINew Voices
- Blogs are making it far cheaper for everyday
citizens to engage in political communication. - All you need is five minutes to set your blog up
and you can publish. - New technologies such as Youtube add new
possibilities. - In some ways resembles 18th century
pamphleteering. - A raucous, rancorous, but lively political
debate, with all the strengths and weaknesses
that this implies. - May sometimes produce interesting policy insights
as in Social Security debate (even if you dont
agree with the blogs, they have still made a
serious intellectual contribution to current
arguments on the topic).
41Blogs and polarization
- Blogs (together with other forms of media) may be
leading to an increase in political polarization. - Evidence suggests that there are few genuinely
centrist blogs in the US. - Blogs on the left of the spectrum tend to link to
other left-wingers, and blogs on the right of the
spectrum to other right-wingers.
42Source Glance and Adamic (2005)
43Cyberbalkanization?
- Cass Sunstein argues that when like-minded
people talk to each other, they tend to reinforce
each others prejudices. - Result increased polarization, and the creation
of mutually exclusive political universes. - Some evidence though mixed that blogs are
contributing to this. - Mixed views as to whether this is a good thing.
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45The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIReplacement of gatekeepers
- Some bloggers claim that this is a new and more
accountable form of journalism. - Dont bet on it.
- Old gatekeepers are losing power.
- CBS forced to back down Eason Jordan
resignation. - But bloggers themselves are becoming new
gatekeepers especially the elite bloggers. - There is no obvious restraint on them
especially given ideological divisions of the
blogosphere. - May lead to problems of accountability as lines
between citizen and journalist blur Obama and
Clinton stories.
46The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIChanging norms
- As blogs become more influential, they are
affecting journalistic norms. - Less emphasis on always giving two sides to the
story. - Less deference to established powers and cosy
relationships. - But also see some problems of their own.
- Easy to slip ringers in (Thunes bloggers in
South Dakota). - Less direct accountability (bloggers relations
with both Democratic and Republican party).
47The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IIDirect democratic action
- Blogs can empower direct democratic action, as
in Sinclair story. - Can also directly affect politicians incentives
through providing information and pressuring
them. - Yet to be seen whether this can be maintained
over sustained periods of time. - But an interesting augur for the future.
48The Politics of the Internet Lecture Five
IILimits of blogs
- Still, blogs have clear limits.
- Limited information gathering abilities except
for a few experts (and new blog/newspaper
hybrids), these are guys in pajamas. - Often fundamentally dependent on the media even
when they claim to despise it. - Unrepresentative in many ways prominent
bloggers tend to be white, upper middle class,
and male. - Often more interested in ideological pointscoring
than in the practice of politics lively, but
certainly only an imperfect example of
deliberation and debate.
49Advent of YouTube
- YouTube is starting to be a highly important
force in politics may eclipse blogs in the long
run. - May have more direct consequences for politics
than blogs do. - Many more people watch TV than read serious
articles about politics. - Similarly, people may be more willing to watch
short video clips (if emailed to them etc) than
to read earnest blog posts.
50George Allen and Macaca Controversy
- During his senatorial re-election campaign, Sen.
George Allen used the term macaca to refer to a
camera operator employed by the Webb campaign. - This blew into a major political controversy
thanks in large part to YouTube. - Claims that this was a racist term.
- Helped lead to a major upset, the election of
Webb and a changeover in control of the Senate.
51New uses of YouTube
- Has become key means for both campaigns to get
message out in 2008. - Cheap and easy way of making video press releases
that may get wider pick-up. - Also allows for differentiating between
audiences. - But this may change as TV shifts towards
Internet. - 2012 will be very interesting