New Media, New Politics?

End of Semester Instructions

As I've done all semester, I'm going to leave the details of this final task somewhat open-ended. Over the course of the past 10 weeks, we've spent our time in the classroom examining various theories and ideas about how the news media and the political system interact. During the week, you've spent part of your time following that interaction in the blogosphere, and part of it exploring the theories in a bit more detail through a series of assigned readings. Now that we're near the end, its time to bring all that together....

STEP ONE: By Wednesday, 11/26, bring your regular weekly blogging to a close. You've followed the hourly news cycle long enough for one semester. But remember: your work on the blog constitutes 80% of your final grade, and of that what you've done up until 11/26 will count for 3/4 of that total (i.e. 60% of your course grade). If you've fallen behind, there's a very limited amount of time left for you to make up that lost ground. If you need an extension on this deadline, please let me know ASAP and we may be able to work something out. [Feel compelled by events to post something after that date? Just be sure to file it under the category of "Rants + Reactions"]

STEP TWO: Eat, drink, and be merry. Do not - I repeat, do not - read blogs on Thanksgiving. 

STEP THREE: Come to our final class on Wednesday, 12/3, prepared to pull things together with a discussion of the last 30 years of US political media history, including a detailed examination of how Shirky's ideas about this latest information revolution do and do not fit with what you've seen in the blogosphere throughout the semester. Are there any parts of Shirky's work that struck you as particular relevant? What critiques do you have of his work? And last but not least, any predictions about the future of our political media? Remember: Class participation is 20% of your grade, so if you need to make one last push, its now or never.

STEP FOUR: Between 12/4 and 12/15, write a post or a series of posts - your choice! - that make a serious effort to pull together your efforts over this past semester. What have you learned? What questions have been left unanswered? What has most surprised you about what you've learned? What has most disappointed you? What, if anything, does the perspective of this class have to say about the media during the Bush years? And what might it lead you to expect during the Obama years? And no partisan answers, please! The goal here is to do serious analysis, not carry water for your favorite candidate or political party.

As you write, everything is fair game: class lectures, discussions, assigned readings, past work on the class blog, responses of your fellow students to this assignment, the blogosphere, the elites... as is always the case with blogging, your approach is yours to choose. Only one real requirement, in fact: Don't try to do, say, and include everything in your your post. As I'm sure you all know by now, blog posts work best when they are built around a small handful of arguments. What I'm looking for is some personal reflection and analysis, and not a typical blue book, final exam styled brain dump.

And although it should go without saying at this point, just in case... you will of course want to include links to whatever materials you are analyzing throughout your analysis. Link to your own posts, link to the posts of others on our blog, link to other parts of the web.... Link link link!

This final writing (or set of writings) will account for the final 20% of your grade. If you can get an initial post done by Tuesday, 12/9, I'm happy to provide you some initial feedback on that day.

And of course, if you have any questions about any of this, please ask.

Bias in the Media

The Onion does it again.

   

The Evolution of The Media

My experience with the blogosphere; reading blogs, writing blogs, and even acknowledging their existence, was almost embarrassing prior to taking this class. I was a firm believer in the traditional printed newspaper and only really turned to the internet when I needed immediate information that I didn't have at hand at the time. Although I was somewhat familiar with the key elite media sites, my views of other more partisan blogs was dismissive and vague, and I believed that they contained nothing significant or even truthful that I couldn't find in my beloved mainstream outlets. 

Imagine my dismay, and almost shame, when I quickly discovered one of the main themes of our class this semester was that pretty much every news break, every scandal to hit the elite media stemmed from the blogosphere. Whilst several people noted that the whole 'lipstick on a pig' fiasco was the best example of a blog story breaking into the mainstream, my personal favorite was the infamous 'that one' quote from McCain during the second presidential debate. This idea was also, as many people before me have mentioned, a central hypothesis of the Shirky book Here Comes Everybody that we read this semester, which dedicates whole chapters to the theories that 'everyone is a media outlet',stating that journalism was no longer by any means exclusive to traditional journalists; and how group action can, in today's information revolution, call the elite media's attention to one person's story simply by the means of networking. Again, as others have already discussed, throughout class this semester we have learnt that this latest revolution is just one of many that have shaken up the way the media presents itself to the public and how this in turn affects the way politics are conducted. Whether it was the development in the postal service which allowed for the travelling of information faster than ever before, or the advent of television which further speeded up the news cycle and brought about drastic ways to the way politics were conducted and presented to the public, communication and information sharing methods are constantly evolving.

The one thing that is different about this revolution is that as the internet age dawns, we are also witnessing the spectacular crumbling of the 'old' media system as we know it, as newspaper circulation numbers continue to plummet and with some of the biggest names scrambling around to try and prevent further losses. Although everyone saw it coming, as Rob quoted from the Shirky blog, the elite media has been bafflingly slow in accepting what is now very quickly becoming a reality and making moves to save their businesses. If its one thing everyone could take from the results of this past election, it is that if you move with the times and adapt accordingly, you can be a success. Step forward please, soon-to-be President Obama. He and his aides ran a historic campaign, not just because of who he is and how far he has come, but in terms of their embracement of this new form of media and information spreading, Team Obama went all out. No rock was left unturned, no type of communication was left unused, from emailing lists to Youtube to t-shirts, Obama and his messages of change were everywhere, and the public couldn't get enough of him. Then, on the other end of the scale, there were those who stubbornly marched on, clinging to old ideas and refusing to acknowledge the changes going on around them, and these people end up going down along side the 'old' media. Although McCain tirelessly built his campaign around his rebellious senatorial reputation, going so far as to recruit Palin as his very own mini-me maverick (who now, quite painfully so, has been pointed to as the kiss of death for the Republican party), his unwillingness to be a part of the information revolution, even going so far as to admit he didn't know how to use a computer, proved to be one of his downfalls. As Molly put it, the McCain campaign simply didn't "get" new journalism the way Obama's did.

Another topic that has been central to both our class and the election which again although I was acutely aware of, I never really gave a lot of thought to, is bias in the media. Although it is universally accepted that blogs are biased, and often proudly so, the neutrality of the elite media was called into question several times as the race drew closer to Election Day. Both parties were involved in the accusations, with the McCain campaign claiming that the New York Times was 'in the tank' for Obama, whilst Obama's team went head to head with Fox News over the coverage of their candidate. There are many different forms of bias that can occur in the media, and one that we learnt about in class that seemed more relevant in the election than the type that the two campaigns got so worked up about was the issue of fairness. Having followed the elite media websites for over two months, a pattern that I noticed when reading many of the articles was that journalists were falling over themselves to always present both sides of every story they reported on, even when the truth was blindingly obvious. Although it could be argued that this is how journalism should be, and that it should be up to the reader to form their own opinion after they are presented with all of the information, isn't it also a journalist's responsibility to write about facts only? Both camps, McCain's in particular, got pretty ugly with the accusations made against the other, so as Rob asked, was it right for the media to cover it all as true, even though many of the claims have proven to be either false or have since disappeared from mainstream media coverage entirely. That is one issue that has been left somewhat unresolved, and it remains to be seen if and how journalistic styles will change as part of the evolution of the media.

Looking forward to the new year and of course to the beginning of Obama's time in office, I think that it is clear that the answer to the question in the title of our course 'New Media, New Politics?' is absolutely yes, and looking back on his campaign, it also seems that there couldn't be someone better for the job of leading the country through this revolution than one who has navigated himself so efficiently and successfully through it thus far, and one who's motto is change. As for the blogosphere, it seems that its time has finally come to step into the forefront of the media world. 

The trust, or lack of

This semester we have looked at American mass media as more than just words and images on a page or screen. We started to dissect the end product. What makes a story a newsworthy story? What makes a string of words a headline? What is the relationship between the producers of the news (journalists, television pundits, etc.) and the media-immersed public that absorbs it? These are the questions that we pondered, and in doing so learned a great deal about why and how we get our news.
I found one aspect of the class particularly interesting: the country's increasing distrust in the media. I won't talk about the future of mass media, or the relationship between blogs and print journalism—these topics have been exhaustively and well covered by my classmates. Instead, I will look at some of the reasons why there exists a great deal of mistrust between the media and the public, and how the media can sometimes be used as a counter-productive tool for manipulation.

For many years Americans trusted mass media. Seemingly timeless institutions like The Washington Post and The New York Times were fancied as unbiased producers of all the news that's fit to print. On television, iconic figures like Walter Cronkite had earned a meritorious spot in living rooms across the country. This simply isn't the cast anymore. A 62 to 22 percent majority of Americans do not trust print journalism, and a 58 to 22 percent majority do no trust television.

But why? The reasons are many and they very greatly, and to surmise why Americans no longer trust the mass media would require much more time and intelligence, two things this author frankly doesn't have. I can, however, explain why I don't trust the media, and I can do it in two words—Frank Luntz.

It's not what you say, it's how you say it.

That axiom has been given as advice for everything from job interviews to college application essays. Why then, is it becoming the unofficial masthead slogan of mass media? Because it's true; often, what's being said is less important than how it's being said, an idea long thought of but only recently thrust back into the mainstream media by pollsters and public relations gurus like Luntz.

Both print and television journalism should be fair and accurate, a balancing act that is often easier to uphold in theory than it is in application. But fairness and accuracy should always be at the bottom line of news, and it is not anymore. In an ideal world, a newsworthy event would happen, and the facts of that event would be aggregated and disseminated through print, radio, and television. In our world, the not-so-simple real world, news is aggregated but then polished before dissemination. It is passed through a lexicon of well-thought-out words and phrases, and the end product is irreversibly changed. The factual information in the story remains the same, but the story's impact is altered greatly.

Global warming – the falsification of “another side to the story”

Take, for instance, global warming. Last year, the United Nations scientific panel stated that a global warming trend is is supported by “unequivocal” evidence, and that it is “very likely” that humans are a large contributing factor. Ideally, media in all its forms would be used to spread this news. As mentioned earlier, however, the use of the media isn't always ideal.

Instead of using the media as a tool to pull the American people by the collar and make us realize our collective, negative impact on the planet, the media was used as a tool to impede the combating of global warming. To Frank Luntz, the fight was not between humans and our worsening environment, but instead a battle of communications.

Luntz's first step was to, obviously, change the wording. Fearing that global warming was too alarmist, he pushed for the substitutive term “climate change.” It might sound like a trite complaint, but in the midst of an environmental problem, should the focus of the government be what to call the problem in the media instead of how to fix it? On its face, it sounds silly to posit that changing two words can have a drastic effect, but it does. If it did not, would Luntz be cashing six-figure checks signed by the highest of governmental officials? We in class saw first hand the polling methods employed by Luntz to find out exactly how Americans respond to words, and he himself stated explicitly that wording is just as important as an issue.

Such an action is harmless compared to his other suggestion. In a memo written in 2002 to the president regarding how to handle the global warming debate in the media, Luntz states:

The scientific debate is closing [against Republicans] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science...Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.

The administration followed Luntz's advice, and questioned the legitimacy of the science that stated that global warming was a concern. This sentiment was, in turn, relayed through all news mediums. In the case of global warming, the parsing of words and the administrations' manufacturing of news-friendly sound bites and press conference statements actually fabricated a borderline fictitious “other side” to the scientific community's statements. The media was used as a tool for manipulation.

It's also who said it.

Frank Luntz works tactfully behind the scenes. He decides what words should be used, and figures out how the administration that employs him can inject their opinions into mass media. To put it simply, he figures out how to get the media to do his bidding.

That's not always necessary, however, if an administration, corporation, or group of people can become the media. Again, on its face such a statement sounds silly and would prompt one to ask, “what does that even mean, become the media?” It is exactly what it sounds like—planting coercive agents within the media to promote a certain idea. Instead of manipulating the public by altering how something is said, these agents manipulate by emphasizing who is is saying it.

In our world of around-the-clock media immersion, the television provides nonstop news coverage on almost every topic. Newscasters turn to pundits and analysts to present their opinions, and those opinions often themselves become news. In the ideal world to which I often reference, this can be a great tool to further the discourse on pressing news topics. Of course, that's not always the case.

The authority of analysts and experts is often only as great as the title by which they are referenced. Does anyone really know what credentials and qualifications one must have before CNN or MSNBC champions him or her an expert? What do newspapers mean when they call someone a respected analyst? There is a foggy gray area surrounding this aspect of the mainstream media, and it leads to a great amount of distrust amongst the public.

Take, for instance, the case of military analysts. An amazing article in the New York Times by David Barstow succinctly captures the egregious manipulation of the mass media:

These men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

There it is, in black and white. The only gray area in this case is that of the haze around the smoking gun—the government attempted and successfully used the media as a tool for manipulation.

Salt in the wound – the response and future.

The only thing worse than the outright manipulation of the media is the public response to it. I am left asking simply one question: where is the outrag? How are people not livid at the fact that the administration employs someone like Luntz, a pollsters whose main task is to manipulate? It's not like he is coy about it. He is explicit in his intent, and he almost brags about his success. The title of his most recent book is Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear, and I'm not making this up! In the case of the proven-coercive military analysts and other “experts,” how can people not question the legitimacy of all the people who weigh in on topics in the media? I contend that people simply don't have the time. Who, realistically, can perform a back ground check on all the members of a major network's analysts or a newspaper's experts?

The news we receive must be fair and balanced, not the primped product of an administration or company's press relations team. This conduct is dangerous. If the backbone of democracy is the free exchange of ideas, and the media is what allows that exchange, is such manipulation not an attack on our practice of democracy?

Fear not, all is not lost and the mainstream mass media is not irreversibly corrupt. Yes, it is hard for the average person to parse all the information hurled at him, but luckily he doesn't have to. Therein lies a great power of the blogs, as well as a realization I took away from this class. The blogosphore has greatly changed how news is transmitted and received, but it can also be a great force in preserving accuracy and legitimacy. Blogs can function as watchdogs, actively working to seek out the coercive elements and sly wording of the mainstream media. As the scope and range of the blogosphere increases, so does its ability to regulate the mass media, to protect our free exchange of ideas, and to protect our democracy.

The Bl-ews, Part II

In my last post, I question how the elite media were unable to "see" the rise of blogs. Per Professor Whalen's suggestion, I looked at Shirky's description of ancient scribes (pp. 66-70) to find a historical parallel... or parallels!

Shirky writes that in the past, a scribe's "function was indispensable, and his skills were irreplaceable" until the printing press provided a "sudden and massive reduction in the difficulty of reproducing a written work." He later compares this to the "indispensable" function of publishing... at least until the development of the blog, which now allows "anyone in the developed world" to publish "anything, anytime, and the instant it's published, it is globally available and readily findable."

Similarly, scribes and journalists/publishers have both exhibited how "professional self-conception and self-defense, so valuable in ordinary times, become a disadvantage in revolutionary ones, because professionals are always concerned with threats to the profession... but in some cases the change that threatens the profession benefits society."

As one HuffPo blogger Jillian York puts it: "Instead of being a newfangled alternative to the news, blogs have become the news."

both

OK. So, as we've discussed, blogs make journalism "easy" for the masses just as the printing press made writing "easy" for the scribes, but both groups were not ready to accept these new anxiety-provoking changes, a reaction that is not so unlikely. When faced with the decision to attack or merge (and potentially lose power), it might be easier to attack. 

On this note... the most hilarious similarity between these groups? Using the new technology to defend old technology! Just as scribes used the printing press to create a wide-spread document in support of their work, journalists are increasingly turning to blogs despite a somewhat unceasing "snarky" attitude towards them.

Jillian York continues to explain how while the MSM is grudgingly accepting this medium, as "global publications are looking toward foreign journalists to provide perspective... by blogging," the attitude isn't completely inclusionary. This is evidenced by a post from Jay Rosen, another HuffPost blogger who reports how Ben Smith of the Politico (gleefully/) described how bloggers painfully crave acceptance from the mainstream media. The seeming struggle between the incorporation of this platform and attacking the platform (through the platform, nonetheless) seems endless. Finally, the MSM has yet to address the major question of citations of blogs. 

On a different technology-note, what will be incredibly interesting in the coming years is the advancement of technology under President Obama. One Huffington Post blogger, Peter M. Shane, writes an interesting response to Obama's vision. He says,

The Obama platform is something of a "Top Ten" list when it comes to proposals for federal leadership in revitalizing democracy through technology. He would "make government data available online in univerally accessible formats to allow citizens to make use of that data... He would establish pilot programs to open up government decision making to meaningful public input. He would require heads executive departments and agencies to conduct significant public business in public and in venues that can be watched online.

Obama promises to employ current information technology to permit citizens to participate in public meetings from a distance. He promises "a web site, a search engine, and other web tools that enable citizens easily to track online federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials."  He would solicit public comment on the final drafts of all non-emergency legislation before he signs it into law.

The kicker?

He would improve government decision-making through Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs and wikis.

Sounds good to me (especially after feeling like there were a lot of unanswered questions in the Bush years)! Wonder if this will actually happen... especially in light of Obama's much publicized Blackberry surrender.

In summary: we've really discussed a wide range of topics this semester, and the biggest questions I have are those regarding the future of interactive media. My current predictions include:

1. a couple more years of uncomfortable shifting by the MSM (notably the newspapers) before journalists, bloggers, and citizens come to an equilibrium.

2. the rise of right-of-center bloggers looking to critique Obama

3. a potential race for technology by Republicans (this just as easily could not happen)

4. wondering about the "new forms" of blogging (and the new challenges to elite media) - podcasts on television?? 

4. a society in which US citizens have more information about government than ever before.

It will be very interesting to see what the future holds, but I am happy to have had a good foundation of the past from this class. It was great sharing it with all of you.

Learning My Lesson

There are some interesting things I would like to discuss before I stop posting on this blog forever. Alex responded to my previous post with a question: Is elite media ever completely unbiased?

Of course, the answer is no. As we analyzed at the beginning of the semester, pictures, headlines, placement, and myriad other factors contribute to the natural bias in the elite media. There is also the innate drive to sell newspapers, and without catchy headlines or interesting fluff articles, that would have been much harder. So I understand that even though blogs are biased, every outlet for the media has a bias. But the bias of the elite media, especially newspapers, is not as glaringly opinionated as those on the blogosphere, or at least those on partisan blogs. And I don't expect them to be. But being that opinionated and powerful (ahem...DRUDGE...) might push the limits sometimes.

As Shirky discussed, the Internet allows us to share with everyone else, to put out video for everyone to watch, and to have discussion more freely and more frequently. These are all changes that we have to adapt to, and we're doing a good job. Politicians (those that aren't Barack Obama) must learn to differentiate between fads and revolutions. This is the latter.

I wrote last week:

But these partisan blogs, from Talking Points Memo to Hot Air, also contribute to the cycle of media news I find most distressing: what Jon Stewart would refer to as "partisan hackery." I've written about this numerous times this semester (here especially), and even though my experiences in the blogosphere have opened my eyes to a number of positive aspects of this news media revolution, I still remain cautious.

This week and its Rod Blagojevich scandal was especially interesting. When the story broke on December 9, and the words "Obama" and "scandal" were in the same headline, I knew that the conservative forces in this country would try their hardest to make any connection from the scandal to the president-elect.

Before you know it, user "rnc" posted this video, titled "Questions Remain."

Perhaps it was just the election season, but it seems as though the blogs have moved back to reporting on important things. This reminds me of the whole Bill Ayers scandal this summer, though in that, there was clear evidence to suggest that Obama did not have clear connections to the former domestic terrorist. We do have a right to ask questions of our elected officials...that's the foundation of our democracy. Popular sovereignty depends on our ability to know the truth and discern for ourselves if politicians should be held accountable. And the way we get our truth is through the media.

Lipstick on pigs? Blackberries? Blogs, in my opinion, did too much to make these insignificant issues seem significant during the election season.

And I rescind my previous criticism of blogs.

One more thing: the difference between partisan blogs and so-called news blogs was glaring. The latter are just boring. I don't care what some real journalist thinks...I'll just read his real article. If I want someone's opinion, I'll read their partisan blogs, where they can rail against candidates and chant my candidate's name. News blogs, to me, have no purpose, except to bypass an editor.

I must learn to teach myself about the nature of a revolutionary medium. I am just not used to it. I guess my conclusion for this semester is just that: I criticize politicians for not adjusting, but I haven't been able to either.

Looking back, looking forward: The re-transformation of the new media?

For the people who follow, study, analyze -- and, in more cases than not, obsessively consume -- the media, it's easy to separate the journalism of today into new and old. "New media," the vague neologism after which this course was named, is the bottom-up, decentralized, institutionless blogosphere. Old media is everything else: Newspapers, magazines, even the cable TV networks (which, not long ago, were new media themselves).

This semester, we traced the evolution of the old media -- its various revolutions, changes and evolutions -- and consumed and analyzed the new media. Our goal, as I saw it, was to understand how the new media has altered today's political world; how the power is shifting to this new group. But after a semester of thought and reflection, I've come to terms with one overarching revelation: the issue is not that simple.

For all of the rhetoric between bloggers and traditional journalists (each group tends to deride the other), the truth is, they are becoming one in the same. The lines between the two groups are blurring. "Bloggers" used to be defined by their independence from institutions; they and their audience spoke directly without a filter. Today, bloggers are forming institutions to organize and filter themselves. "Journalists" used to be defined by their organizationalism (the newspaper, not the reporter, was credited for a scoop); now, many of them post on individual blogs.

What that means, in essence, is that the two groups are merging. The difference between them is shrinking as bloggers adopt the more successful aspects of conventional news organizations and news organizations adopt many of the innovations that bloggers pioneered. To me, then, the issue is not that power has shifted to bloggers. Instead, bloggers have altered and been incorporated by the rest of the media. This macro-level change, as we've seen, has altered American journalism and electoral politics in both good and bad ways.

Bloggers and journalists vs. blogging and journalism: 

Today, the newspaper industry -- a key backbone of America's founding -- is falling apart. Papers everywhere are folding, firing, and on the verge of collapse. Even the New York Times is taking out a mortgage on its Manhattan headquarters to make up for plummeting profits.

Almost the entirety of this collapse can be attributed to the Internet.

Because news is now available for free online, most newspapers are basically forced to offer their content free-of-charge on their websites. Classified ad sales have fallen sharply because of Craigslist, and the online ad market, while burgeoning as an industry, doesn't produce nearly enough revenue to make up for falling ad sales. There's a very good possibility that most of the top print newspapers will be out-of-business or severely scaled back within the next five years

The question is: Who will pick up the slack?

It's very easy to answer that question by saying that bloggers will drive journalism in the 21st Century, but I don't think the answer is that simple. In following a group of blogs throughout the semester, I noticed that different bloggers can do very different things. Some, like Teagan Goddard or Matt Drudge (I'm counting him as a blogger, at least in some sense), just point to and summarize content elsewhere on the web; I call this group aggregators. Others, like Talking Points Memo and The Daily Kos, summarize news from elsewhere and analyze it, injecting their opinion; I call this group the commentators. Finally, some bloggers actually seek out and discover stories through their own investigation (Marc Ambinder, Ben Smith, Jon Martin); I call them the reporters.

The structural problem right now is that, by and large (and with some notable exceptions), most of the bloggers doing actual reporting are supported by a traditional media institution, like a newspaper or network. That's because, while blogs have reduced the cost of publishing information (and thus opened up the process to anyone with a keyboard), they haven't reduced the cost of journalism. Journalism is expensive: it requires travel and legwork. Investigations often involve expensive fees for public records requests and document analysis. Newspapers haven't yet found a way to effectively monetize their web operations on a scale that would cover the cost of journalism as a process. And without newspapers or other traditional media outlets, today's bloggers would have much less to talk about.

To me, there's no clear answer to how journalism will be conducted as more newspapers die out. One possibility is the Politico model; a Web-heavy operation that utilizes blogs as a medium for original reporting, and is supported by wire-service fees and a small, cost-efficient print operation. But only time will tell.

What blogs do well: Aggregate, spin, interact, mobilize

Even though I see flaws in today's bloggers' ability to perform investigative journalism, I don't mean to write blogs off as a fad, or even as a small factor in today's politics. Quite to the contrary, the 2008 election news cycle was driven by blogs as a medium. Blogs, regardless of who posts on them (be they traditional journalists or "new media" personalities, offer a three advantages that no print product ever will: constant publishing, the ability to point readers to information housed elsewhere (without republishing that information), and the ability for readers to interact with each other in one central place.

In this election, we saw blogs keep certain stories going while abandoning others. Obama's decision to forego public financing left the news cycle quickly, while McCain's decision to "suspend" his campaign did not. "Lipstick on a Pig" became a major news story while most of Biden's gaffes flew under the radar. That's because, while most news sources determine what their readers/viewers are talking and thinking about, many blogs are driven by what their readers/viewers are talking about. It's an important difference, and it has positive and negative implications. On the one hand, it democratizes the news, freeing consumers of the elite media's corporate filter. On the other, it tends to augment conversation about that which is trivial, entertaining, salacious or controversial -- but not necessarily that which is important.

Bypassing the filter: New media as an organizing tool

Far more important to this election than the change in the news cycle (in reality, it has been constant and trivial since the advent of cable news) is the change in how political supporters are organized. The Obama campaign became the first presidential campaign to truly leverage the power of the Internet in organizing its supporters, turning a simple e-mail list into its most valuable asset.

Ironically, though, Obama's operation was not an example of Shirky's "here comes everybody" thesis. It was a new model -- a synthesis of the bottom-up approaches cited by Shirky and the top-down approach of conventional organizations. They had paid staff managing volunteer "neighborhood captains," who in turn managed volunteers from their area. The entire process was monitored and led by the Obama campaign.

No article has expressed this distinction better than this one, from the Huffington Post a few months ago. Here's an excerpt:

Other recent attempts [at organizing] have failed because they were either so "top-down" and/or poorly-managed that they choked volunteer leadership and enthusiasm; or because they were so dogmatically fixated on pure peer-to-peer or "bottom-up" organizing that they rejected basic management, accountability and planning. The architects and builders of the Obama field campaign, on the other hand, have undogmatically mixed timeless traditions and discipline of good organizing with new technologies of decentralization and self-organization.

What the Obama campaign recognized was the distinction, once again, between process and medium. Social networks (like MyBO) are a tool that can be used to help people communicate. What they do with that communication is a process -- a goal. The Obama team allowed users to access the tool for their own purposes in a very bottom-up model, but managed the process -- organizing volunteers -- in a top-down fashion. I would be far from surprised if this model became the standard for campaigns going forward.

So what?

If I had to boil all of this down to a single thesis, it would be this: "new media" is a collection of tools that have altered how actors in today's political world -- be they journalists, campaigns or in-office politicians -- can communicate with the public. Some bloggers are part of the equation in that they are a group of actors in today's political world who previously were not involved. Others are part of the equation in that how they approach their goals -- be it organizing, reporting, publishing or some other pursuit -- has been altered by this new set of tools.

We'll see where technology takes us going forward. But for now, it is an amazing and exciting time to be entering the world of news, politics and media. Thanks to everyone for a great discussion this semester!

Last Post Addendum: Demise of the Newspapers

Clay Shirky, on the demise of newspapers in a blog post entitled "The Newspaper Industry and the Arrival of the Glaciers":

"So I'm calling bullshit on the Rosenbaum thesis, because no one has been "caught up in this great upheaval." Caught up? That makes it sound like a tornado. This change has been more like seeing oncoming glaciers ten miles off, and then deciding not to move."

A few days ago Alex suggesting that I add a bit regarding the latest round of newspaper collapses to my final post.  He also pointed me towards the above -linked blog post by Clay Shirky.  Since then I have been compiling my thoughts on the topic and trying to formulate my own conclusion.  Well, here is my profound insight: I agree with Clay.

Seriously though, the very first thing that comes to mind when I see every seemingly shocked newspaper executive blaming their apparently sudden downfall on a million different reasons is how absurdly incompetent they must be to have assumed that the dynamic of their problem would just suddenly vanish when it is caused by such a fundamental change and has been so long coming.  

The parallels of this collapse to that of the music industry - an area that I have studied closely as a music producer, audio engineer, and intern at a music-law firm - are numerous, and the lack of corporate response equally ludicrous.  The internet changed everything in audio and newspapers.  When the first digital mediums for capturing audio were developed the industry succeeded for the most part in crippling consumer hardware to prevent end-users from making copies of digital audio tapes - which for the first time could be made without generational quality loss.  Then the internet came along.  Just like that these perfect copies could be traded over a global network without any marginal cost.  Hmmm.  What specific factors does Shirky pin the demise of the newspaper biz on? 

"It didn't take much vision to figure out that unlimited perfect copyability, with global reach and at zero marginal cost, was slowly transforming the printing press into a latter-day steam engine."

There you have it.  The music biz (at least in its traditional form) and the newspaper biz are dying the same slow and painful death of the very same symptoms. 

The future of each of these industries is also running in parallel.  People still want to listen to music and still have a need for information, they just don't have to go the the same old places to get it.  CDBaby and TuneCore are taking advantage of everything the internet has to offer and connecting bands directly with fans.  Likewise, niche blogs and news sites are emerging to give people their informational fix up to the minute - without the need to pick up any pesky paper at the newsstand.

The major-label fat cats and old-media CEOs should play a round of golf together sometime.  Their schedules will certainly be open enough in the not so distant future...

Conclusions

This semester has provided in-depth insight into the world of the blogosphere and its tremendous impact upon politics, society, and the ways in which we, as a civilization, absorb information.  Everything has become faster, and if you think about it, this makes perfect sense.  Humans (particularly Americans) are becoming obsessed with speed.  We want the fastest cars, the fastest internet, we want to be able to cook our dinners in the least amount of time possible.  Why shouldn't we want the fastest information?  And, to a degree, blogs have done an admirable job in reporting the news in a manner that allows everyone to be connected to world and political events in real time (or very close to it).  I would argue that, thanks to blogs, people are far better informed than they were before blogs existed.  Nevertheless, there are (to me) inherent problems with the blogging system, and in the following post I'd like to examine the benefits and drawbacks of that system, first through the lens of the 2008 election, and then through a more general analysis of blogs and media.  Hopefully, this will help to at least begin to answer the question as to whether or not blogs are beneficial or detrimental to the news, media, and to human society as a whole.

The Election

First and foremost, let's look back on the 2008 election process.  I think that, overall, this may have been the most effective demonstration of how blogs can be both productive as well as destructive.  On the one hand, blogs gave millions of Americans access to information that would otherwise be difficult to find.  Polling trends, candidate's positions on issues, and up-to-the minute updates on what those candidates were doing all provided blog readers with knowledge that probably helped them to cast their vote.  Sure, they probably could have found the same information in the newspaper or on television, but it likely would have taken a lot more effort, something which people are often not willing to expend in this day and age.  Blogs were crucial in making voters aware of political issues and also making them passionate about defending (or attacking) those issues.  Never has a public been so mobilized as in the '08 election, and a great deal of that is thanks to blogs and to the internet in general.  It brought people together during a time when so many are often divided.  Sites like Daily Kos, Matthew Yglesias and The American Prospect were particularly impressive in their attempts to be as up-to-date (and generally as accurate) as possible.  Even if they presented an inherent bias, they were impressive in their attention to detail and were generally insightful in their commentary. 

However, I'd be remiss if I didn't voice my misgivings about the blogosphere during the electoral process.  Its habit of making smaller stories into enormous ones often became irritating.  Probably the best example of this (in my view) was the infamous "lipstick on a pig" quote from Obama.  One minute, he was making a speech that would have been heard by a relatively small crowd and likely passed over by the media at large, and the next minute his (fairly harmless) quote was all over the internet, including virtually every political blog on the planet.  This led to the story's being picked up by every major television network and newspaper.  It was an explosion of comical proportions, and it gave one phrase the potential to ruin Obama's campaign a la Howard Dean's screaming incident.  Obviously, this might be a bit dramatic, but nevertheless it's a good example of the over-analysis/overexposure which is so common in the blogging world, and also a perfect example of how blogs influence the rest of the media.  As we said so often in class, it's remarkable how an internet post by one guy can so quickly make its way to the headlines of CNN.  That's the influence of blogs in a nutshell, and it's pretty impressive, if not slightly disconcerting.

On the flip-side, I sometimes became incredibly frustrated when blogs moved so fast that they often overlooked some of the more interesting and essential stories.  For instance, when the economy was first going down the tubes, it was rarely mentioned on the blogs I was reading.  Sure, there might be a story about AIG's problems in the morning, but by the afternoon it was back to discussing Sarah Palin's wardrobe.  It wasn't until it became apparent that our finances were about to disappear completely that the blogs finally realized that the economy was the story they (and the political campaigns) needed to be paying attention to.  It showed how bloggers' short attention spans often results in their losing the big picture, leading their blogs to become destructive rather than instructive by depriving their readers of essential information.

Overall, though, I'd have to say that in spite of all their often extreme biases and almost obnoxiously torrid news cycle (which doesn't even allow readers to absorb one story before moving on to the next), the blogs did an admirable job of covering the campaign, and were usually able to draw attention to the right issues.  As I said, they helped to mobilize a population that had not been so motivated in years (at least on the left-wing), and allowed Obama and his team to harness an energy that essentially propelled them to their historic victory.  It's a perfect display of what Shirky talks about in his book: "the power of organizing without organizations".  I think it's a tremendous innovation that people and their ideas can come together so easily to promote a cause.  No paperwork has to be filled out, no hoops to be jumped through.  You just do it, and that's truly liberating.  So well done, blogs.  Well done, indeed.

Blogs and the World of Media

Now I want to move to the bigger picture:  how are blogs affecting the modern media, and what does that mean for the future of our communications industry?  To address the former portion of that question, I think it's pretty safe to say that blogs are at the forefront of the newspaper genocide (thanks to Molly for the link!) that's currently taking place.  In all seriousness, newspapers as we know them may be completely extinct within the next couple of years.  Websites like blogs have made things so instantaneous and so convenient, that taking the time to read a paper probably seems absurd to most people, not to mention expensive.  This has resulted in a titanic drop in paper sales, so much so that even the giant known as The New York Times is having to severely rethink its marketing strategy, turning more to the internet and less to home delivery.  Indeed, that's what we're seeing from all of the major papers.  They seem to be realizing that the internet is the way of the future (indeed, the way of the present) and if they're going to survive, they're going to have to make some serious adjustments.  Those that can't keep up will almost certainly be left to rot.  Or at least go bankrupt.  To me, this is disappointing.  Of course I appreciate the effort to make news more accessible, but there will always be a part of me that enjoys sitting down and reading a physical newspaper.  It's just a tradition, and I'll be very sorry to see it go.  The same goes for TV news.  Local stations in particular are going down the toilet, firing top executives and talent in favor of young, cheap labor, and even that isn't helping.  Pretty soon, we may be facing a television news world comprised solely of CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, all of which have extensive internet content that often goes more in depth than their on-air coverage.  Unnerving stuff, but it seems that's where we're headed, and we've got to adapt along with it.

Who's Accountable?

One final issue that I think requires our attention is one that was brought up in one of our final classes: who is held accountable for their words?  As we said, in the "olden days", there was a very clear set of rules laid out for journalists and authors in terms what should and shouldn't be written (i.e. on the record and off the record), and if someone wrote something controversial, they'd have to answer their critics.  Now, as Matt pointed out in his post, in the age of the blog everyone is an author, so who's subject to the restrictions formerly reserved only for professionals?  Everyone or no one?  This is a problem for me in that any bozo can start a blog and write anything he wants while not having to worry about taking responsibility for his words.  He can write things that aren't true and claim them to be fact without having to be concerned about official reprimand.  That doesn't seem right to me.  And don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to rant against freedom of speech here.  I think it's excellent that people have this new forum in which to express their opinions.  I'm just saying that the blogosphere makes the line between professional author and ordinary civilian, extremely blurry, and I'll be very interested to see how it resolves itself.  Will bloggers be given the journalistic protection Matt writes about, or will an entirely new branch of journalism emerge where new rules are created?  Should be an interesting ride.

Into the Great Unknown

So where are these blogs going to end up?  Hard to say.  Alex think that now that the election's over, they'll retreat back into specialized areas (i.e. health care, the economy, foreign affairs, etc.) and not reunite until the next election.  I think that's definitely possible, and might actually be beneficial to the media as a whole, for if the blogs aren't all spurring each other on with competing information, there's a chance that the news cycle might return to at least a semi-normalized and digestible pace.  But my real question is whether or not the big corporations who have for so long controlled the media will find a way to contain the blogosphere.  How will they adapt to this new world?  Will blogs elude their power and remain unrestrained and uncontrollable, or will they fall under the same monopolies that control our major newspapers and tv networks?  Personally, I think someone will probably find a way to harness the power of blogs and make them into a more finite, more profitable entity.  But that's just my cynical perspective, and for the sake of free information, I hope I'm proved wrong.  Regardless, I think our society is moving towards a blog-dependent era, and I don't see that changing any time soon.  People want their news, they want it fast, and they want it to be constantly changing.  That's what blogs do, and for better or worse, they are the foreseeable future of this country and this world's media.  

Thanks to Alex and the class for a great semester.  Happy holidays!

Last Thoughts

Before I mention Shirky, I'd like to bring in one of the best-positioned people to come out of the blogging revolution: Arianna Huffington.   She just wrote a book.

Its first page:

"'Blogging is the only addiction that won't make you fat, drunk or stoned.  But it might make you so hungry for instant gratification that your books get shorter.'---Erica Jong, novelist, HuffPost blogger

Yes, yes, we get the irony. We're writing a book about blogs.  Where is the comments section? Where are the links? By the time you're thumbing through this at the bookstore several months will have transpired since we wrote these words.  With no comments from readers.  Or updates.

But believe it or not, a book about blogging fits neatly into this juncture in communication history.  You see, printed books themselves were once a rather revolutionary idea.  Six hundred years ago, if people wanted to share ideas, they had few options.  We could shout our complaits from the barn rafters.  Maybe a few chickens would hear you.  We could scrawl or draw our musings and post them in the town square---but soon the elements would take their toll.  Documents were preserved, of course---medieval monks specialized in hand-copying important texts---but to justify years of a monk's time, these documents had to be privileged indeed.  Few normal people could spare five years to hand-write their stories."  

My, have things changed.  And to segway, she said last week on The Daily Show, "You lost your job?  You have time to blog!"

THE DEATH OF PRINT (causing massive job cuts)

Another pretty significant thing we've seen from this election, (and something Alex's review of the history of the media has brought to our attention), is the death of print.  The newspaper and magazine industries (in addition to the rest of the country's economic downturn) have tanked.  Are we really okay with that?  Rumors swirling about Entertainment Weekly and TIME magazine suggest despite the death of magazines in-print, the Internet is their new home.  Jon Stewart gives us the rundown:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Clusterf#@k to the Poor House - Final Edition Edition

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

But what will that mean?  (Give me a chance before you write this off as celeb gossip) It was released today that People's interview with Angelina Jolie following the birth of her twins was done by email, as in, it's possible she hadn't even answered the interviewer's questions herself! From Gawker: 

"The biggest loss here isn't one of journalistic ethics — expectations for People seem fairly low in that regard — but for the magazine's future. If the magazine offers neither an authentic (if pandering) glimpse into celebrities' emotional lives or a bunch of scandals, why shouldn't readers just flip on the TV? At least they'll know the quotes are real."  

Granted, this type of "scandal" could probably happen in any medium, however, I think this demonstrates the importance of video integration in blogs, if we're really moving towards the direction of truth and accountability.  

[Speaking of truth and accountability, the PERFECT complement to this class is Ron Howard's latest: Frost/Nixon.  Aside from its incredibly talented cast and the history that it portrays, the film is a fantastic cinematic transition into these next few weeks of Bush's stepping down from power and the media's involvement in his accountability for his mistakes (though maybe not "crimes," as Nixon committed) during his presidency.]

THE INTERNET

That brings us to the Internet, "the printing world's true archnemesis." The Internet is such a powerful tool that Nobel literature prize winner Jean-Marie Gustavejust just said in his Nobel lecture to the Swedish Academy, "if the Internet existed at the time, perhaps Hitler's criminal plot would not have succeeded - ridicule might have prevented it from ever seeing the light of day."  (via Gawker, accessed 9:37p, 12.10.08)

What could we do without you?  What would we do without you?  

What would we do if we didn't have a live Shiba Inu puppycam (that broke Internet records, with 15 million viewers) (via Silicon Alley Insider, accessed 10:44p, 12.13.08)?  If we want to look at Internet phenomena, this incredibly contagious streaming video (already the most-watched streaming video ever), will become the most watched online video ever when it passed 774 viewer years (It's at 773 now). 

What would we do without Google?  Let's admit, Google is pretty amazing.  From Google Zeitgeist 2008, here are the fastest rising global searches on the site:

1.  sarah palin
2.  beijing 2008
3.  facebook login
4.  tuenti
5.  heath ledger
6.  obama
7.  nasza klasa
8.  wer kennt wen
9.  euro 2008
10.  jonas brothers

u.s. searches:

1.  obama
2.  facebook
3.  att
4.  iphone
5.  youtube
6.  fox news
7.  palin
8.  beijing 2008
9.  david cook
10.  surf the channel

13 THINGS I LIKE ABOUT BLOGS (Quotes from Huffington's interview on The Daily Show):

1.  The word "blog" is short for "weblog."  This illustrates an idea central to blogging. In addition to being a log of all things web, a blog is something that we do. We control what we say and if we don't like what someone else is saying, we can blog about it ourselves.  Sites like Ground Report and Now Public have capitalized on this idea of "ordinary" people reporting news, and updates its front page with what its staff deems the "best" entries.

EXHIBIT A: THE MUMBAI TERROR ATTACKS AND THE RISE OF CITIZEN JOURNALISM.

Some of the first photographs of the Mumbai terror attacks were posted to Flickr by Vinukumar Ranganathan, which were later used by the all the major news organizations.  Other notable accounts  included those of Amit Varma, Sonia Faleiro, and Rahul Bhatia (all stranded at the Gordon House Hotel in Mumbai).  Twitter also served as a source for instant updates, with the "#Mumbai" tag, or the  "near: Mumbai" tag.  The attack was tracked (also planned---see Alex H.'s post) on Google Maps (via TechCrunch and Gauravonomics, accessed 1:07a, 12.14.08).   

EXHIBIT B: WIKIPEDIA.  Wikipedia, too, is incredibly important, even in the reporting of the Mumbai attacks, in getting the facts straight.  Shirky, on Wikipedia (and its article on Pluto):

"...[After] Pluto got kicked out of the planet club a couple of years ago...all of a sudden there was all of this activity on Wikipedia. The talk pages light up, people are editing the article like mad, and the whole community is in an ruckus--'How should we characterize this change in Pluto's status?' And a little bit at a time they move the article--fighting offstage all the while--from, "Pluto is the ninth planet," to "Pluto is an odd-shaped rock with an odd-shaped orbit at the edge of the solar system...if you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, all of Wikipedia, the whole project--every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in--that represents something like the cumulation of 100 million hours of human thought...it's a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it's the right order of magnitude, about 100 million hours of thought." 

(via Shirky's blog companion to his book: herecomeseverybody.org, accessed 1:19a, 12.14.08)

According to Shirky, this amount of thought comes out of a "cognitive surplus," a surplus of free time to think.

2.  Enough people in the world have enough free time on their hands to create 50,000 new blogs. Those blogs and the ones before them are the "first draft of history." [Blogging]'s not about perfection. It's about intimacy, immediacy, transparency..."  Blogs and blogging outlets, such as Twitter in the Mumbai example, are where the news breaks fIrst.  We have the news organizations to frame and polish the stories as they see fit.  It's going to be really important to watch how 43 fares with this issue in 2009, with the foundation of his library and the publishing of his memoirs.  

3.   Headlines/Linkage.  An effective tool to getting someone involved who knows the context and getting the person who doesn't know the context to click on it and find out.  

EXHIBIT C:  "SENATE RECOUNT: MINNEAPOLIS GIVES UP ON 133 BALLOTS, BUT THEY STILL HAVE PULL" (via Minneapolis Star Tribune, accessed 11:37p, 12.13.08)

For someone who has been following the Franken/Coleman race, this headline holds great significance (and makes them angry).  For those to whom it doesn't, they have the link right there to read the story.  

4.  You can bet that if you've ever been in the public sphere or get back into the news somehow, SOMEONE is going to dig up EVERY video/appearance/quote you've said.  It doesn't just have to be those slaves/interns toiling away at the news networks going through old footage and newspaper archives, because now, the news networks interns are quote-fishing on blogs. 

EXHIBIT D: Blagojevich was always a Blagojevidiot.  "Pill of Rights," on The Daily Show circa February '06:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Pill of Rights

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

and just for fun, "REALLY!?! WITH SETH AND AMY" from last night's SNL:

5.  Similarly, we've seen a surge of tracking or "trend-watching" sites, such as a new project entitled CityMurmur. Although you might not understand its first test site (it's Madrid), it's integrating new visualization techniques with real data.  An earlier post I wrote on this blog was tracked on an experimental site called, "Political Streams," a branch of "Social Streams." because I mentioned John McCain's name.  

Even Obama's team has integrated this idea of tracking and voting up top stories, similar to Digg, with its "Open For Questions" page, to determine which lucky person will get Obama to respond."Since its launch [on Wednesday, December 10th], the Open for Questions tool has processed over 600,000 votes from more than 10,000 people on more than 7,300 questions." 

6.  And then, perhaps the biggest point.  Blogs are a source to weed through everything and to "cut through the bull," as CNN's Campbell Brown likes to put it.  If we were to only follow one blog, everything is framed and edited down (just like other "truth vehicles" like a TV program or documentary).  As bloggers, we have a responsibility to sort through multiple blogs to get balanced and well-informed stories.  Or we have other websites that claim to do that for us. 

EXHIBIT E:  THE REALITY CAMPAIGN, to expose the "myth" of clean coal. A project of the Alliance for Climate Protection, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Foederation, the Natural Resources Defnese Council, adn the Leauge of Conservation Voeters. [It also incorporates great graphics!]

EXHIBIT F:  BAGNEWSNOTES.   I've learned to have such a critical eye in media coverage.  I've turned to blogs like BagNewsNotes that publish examples of media bias---it makes me feel better that I'm getting a neutral perspective on the world.  To bring up the Mumbai example again, on BagNewsNotes, they did a piece on the Mumbai deaths and how most of the time, only the American life stories of the victims were portrayed on the news/online.

7.  The "hunch" post:  Maybe that's the most frustrating concept I (and the blogosphere) have had to wrap our heads around these last few months. We just don't know what the future will bring. We write all of these prediction posts, from talking heads and guest bloggers, when we have no idea what the turnout will be. "Obama's suspected to...", "Our best estimates indicate...".  Let's hope this isn't what the blogosphere evolves into...We like the meatier, reaction posts or live-reporting/Twitter updates, not the anticipatory posts.

8.  "Gotcha" journalism. Maybe this isn't a blog issue entirely, more of one that's impacted directly by our political climate.  You can see it in Frost/Nixon---we've seen a movement towards more accountability and credibility.  Cut the bull.  Serve us the truth. 

EXHIBIT G: MIKE HUCKABEE ON THE DAILY SHOW:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

9. They're making money.  Check out Tumblr.  It just made $4.5mil in financing (via MediaMemo, accessed 1:10a, 12.14.08)

10. The rise of specific blog/vlog/video outlet sites, such as The Hub (YouTube for human rights) and Causecast (a "platform where media, philanthropy, social networking, entertainment and educaton converge...").  

EXHIBIT H: THE HUB.  A community-driven effort, The Hub is a subgroup of WITNESS, an international human rights organization that furthers its mission through video and online technology.  

"You can use each media item on the site to encourage individuals to learn more and to get involved by providing direct links to resources, advocacy groups, campaigns and actions that they can take to make a difference. Additionally, you can connect with groups or create one of your own to feature your work on the Hub. Every week you can watch the three most urgent videos contributed to the Hub, and hand-picked by our editors."

11.  The interaction of real life, TV, and film, with online life.  Social gathering (like, for actual, in person meetings) a la SecondLife or Improv Everywhere.  

EXHIBIT I: Some nerds at Carnegie Mellon mess with Google Street View (via intelligent travel, accessed 1:17a, 12.14.08):

EXHIBIT J: Jeremy Keith gets his Flickr picture "Andy in the VAB"  into Iron Man. For the full story, check out Keith's blog, Adactio.  Speed Racer also employed this technique.  

"The spectacle of an alternative suburbia was created by borrowing from a database of existing visual items and assembling them into background, midground and foreground. Pink flowers came from one photo source, a bicycle from another archive, a generic house roof from yet another. Computers do the hard work of keeping these pieces, no matter how tiny and partial they are, in correct perspective and alignment, even as they move. The result is a film assembled from a million individual existing images. In most films, these pieces are handmade, but increasingly, as in 'Speed Racer,' they can be found elsewhere." 

(via NYT Mag, accessed 1:38a, 12.14.08)

12.  Never letting "old" issues die.  Even if the news networks don't cover it (because there's not actually "news-worthy news" to report), there's always bloggers that won't stop until their agenda is met. 

EXHIBIT K: The gay equality movement, as expressed by FunnyOrDie and Causecast's visual interpretation of Harvey Milk's historic "hope" speech:

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

If only Milk had been released two months earlier.

13. Our understanding of the blogosphere is essential to us becoming visually literate.  

From Kevin Kelly's "Becoming Screen Literate," featured in NYT Magazine:

"An emerging set of cheap tools is now making it easy to create digital video. There were more than 10 billion views of video on YouTube in September. The most popular videos were watched as many times as any blockbuster movie."

"The most popular viral videos on the Web can reach millions of downloads. Success garners parodies, mashups or rebuttals — all in video form as well. Some of these offspring videos will earn hundreds of thousands of downloads themselves. And the best parodies spawn more parodies. One site, TimeTube, offers a genealogical view of the most popular videos and their descendants. You can browse a time line of all the videos that refer to an original video on a scale that measures both time and popularity. TimeTube is the visual equivalent of a citation index; instead of tracking which scholarly papers cite other papers, it tracks which videos cite other videos. All of these small innovations enable a literacy of the screen.

As moving images become easier to create, easier to store, easier to annotate and easier to combine into complex narratives, they also become easier to be remanipulated by the audience. This gives images a liquidity similar to words. Fluid images  made up of bits flow rapidly onto new screens and can be put to almost any use. Flexible images migrate into new media and seep into the old. Like alphabetic bits, they can be squeezed into links or stretched to fit search engines, indexes and databases. They invite the same satisfying participation in both creation and consumption that the world of text does."

To conclude:

To put it all in perspective, this GOOD Magazine-produced spot gives us a pretty good idea of what the world has really been doing with our Internet time (on a serious note, some startling statistics about pornography on the web) (via Changethethought, accessed 10:18p, 12.13.08):

THANK YOU Alex and everyone for contributing to a fun, inspiring, thought-provoking class! It was such a pleasure.  I hope you all have a fantastic winter break.

As for me, I've felt enough pressure after this course to jump on the bandwagon already. I'm off to start my own blog.

Update on My Last Post

As a response to Alex's e-mail.

"You write 'The basic consequence of this news cycle is that the only  stories that stick
are those that directly impact everyone's day to  day life.'
And later, you write: "The blog, which the right has yet to master,  kept the pace of the
news at lightning speed."
I ask: Is this a function of the times (i.e. bad economic news made  everyone more
serious?) or an effect of the blogosphere/new media?  i.e. is it situational or permanent?"

I would argue that from now on, it will be a permanent fixture of high stakes elections. The news pace has slowed down considerably from Nov. 4th. The media will likely focus on Rod Blagojevich's arrest (and, frankly, insanity) for the next few days. However, during the election cycle, citizens' desires to know more about the candidates was furthered by the capabilities of the new media. This, in turn, drove the media cycle to move faster. However, now, the impending auto bailout, the Governor of Illinois' boneheaded move and any speculation as to Obama's future cabinet selections have dominated the news cycle as people have already elected their next president. In essence, the speed of the blogosphere is perfectly equipped to undermine the opposition candidate. By giving the average (unpaid) person a platform with which to share their views and opinions, the blog has fundamentally transformed everything that we came to expect from an election. People seeking to promote their candidate and diminish the other candidate found an audience they never had before. In turn, during the election cycle, these people were able to drive the speed of the election cycle by constantly posting new news stories and speculation.

    Once they don't have anyone to oppose for the next four years, the news cycle slows down and we're (mostly) able to stop reading blogs obsessively. Another way to look at this same situation is that it is a structural change. Our country will always be a two party country on a national scale; this inherently puts the two sides at odds (as you may have noticed). These two sides (and all their affiliates) seek to undermine the other by coming up with damaging stories about the other party's candidate (this is a good example.) Campaigns, while centralized, have lots of different moving parts. The presidency, at least at this point, is stagnant. No one is really taking what Bush does seriously and everyone is just speculating about who will be nominated to serve in Obama's cabinet. But, these rumors aren't driven by people on the blogs. You don't see someone on a blog saying "well, I heard Obama is giving Secretary of the Interior to so-and-so." It's all driven from rumors within the administration; some may even argue that these are leaked to judge public support. The centralized nature of the presidency naturally leads to less speculation on behalf of the blogs. Had a Blagojevich scandal of this magnitude emerged during the election cycle, the blogs would be abuzz with speculation about a dinner party they both attended 4 years ago. However, as Obama will be our president no matter what come January 20th, there are no "new breaking stories" about Obama and Blagojevich. Other than nutsos writing on a Politico discussion forum, most accept that the Obama administration had nothing to do with this latest scandal.

    The increased speed of the news cycle is inherently a byproduct of our new technologies. Allowing Andrew Sullivan (the first person who came to mind) to blog 80 times a day will allow people to become more exposed to a wider variety of issues. The increased number of issues in the mind of the average person will lead the news media struggling to keep up with its pace. The interaction between the elite media and the blog is something not easily described in words. But, I'll try. The news media reports on many stories across the country (and the world). Blogs then compile the most interesting stories, commenting on them and increasing awareness about them until they reach a national audience. No one would have heard about Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party. This speculation forces the mainstream media to report on it once again in a more detailed fashion(in Trent Lott's case, this cost him his Senate leadership position). The blogs then comment on the elite media's coverage of the event and any breaking news. And on, and on, and on. This happens until a new breaking story distracts the blogosphere and the elite media into talking about something else. This coverage-speculation-coverage cycle is best utilized when trying to tarnish one's political opposition. Because even the right wing has come to terms with the fact that Obama will be our president, it is slightly futile to try to undermine him. This, I would argue, is why the media sped up during the most recent election cycle. Enabled by our new technologies that give a voice to any average guy, people seek to undermine those that they do not agree with.

UPDATE: Interesting link that makes my earlier point.