Public announcement: I’m giving a lecture on blogs, “Welcome to the Blogosphere: How Blogs are Changing Politics,” next Tuesday (October 11), from 6pm-8pm. The venue is GWU’s Elliott School, Suite 602, 1957 E St. NW, Washington DC. There’ll be a reception afterwards. No RSVPs are necessary; CT readers are especially welcome.
{ 15 comments }
Wolfgang 10.05.05 at 9:59 am
> How Blogs are Changing Politics
This should be a short lecture, because as far as I see, blogs do not change politics one bit.
Chuck 10.05.05 at 10:27 am
Thanks for mentioning the talk. I’ll try to attend, if I can. Is GWU relatively accessible via Metro?
Russell Arben Fox 10.05.05 at 11:03 am
Will you post the lecture, Henry? Obviously, I’m not going to be able to make it.
Seth Finkelstein 10.05.05 at 11:20 am
Please, please, try to correct the “blogs took down Dan Rather” myth that has become a cliche. There was an extensive institutional public relations frenzy there, which indeed had connected pundits as part of that process. The “blogs” weren’t out there on their own (though many did worthy, overall accurate work). But they had tremendous right-wing media support.
KCinDC 10.05.05 at 11:24 am
What about the “blogs took down Trent Lott” idea?
Seth Finkelstein 10.05.05 at 11:33 am
Another triumphalist myth. The “blogs” in that case were media pundits who are full members of the punditocracy.
From outside of the chattering classes, these are tiny, tiny shifts. Now, they are real shifts, and will be of intense interest to professional chatters. But it’s like shake-ups at the executive level of a big corporation. The top-level people and the management climbers care. It doesn’t change anything for anyone else, except in very marginal ways.
stormy 10.05.05 at 12:54 pm
Some blogs work–there is actually a dialogue between bloger and posters.
Others are simply one blogger talking to another…or commenting on the latest article or issue. The posters are quite irrelevant, at best a dummied-down Greek Chorus. And even if the posters do raise issues or problems, they, the posters, are simply dismissed as irrelevant to the little idea wars being waged.
The last tends to be an imitation of the sterile kind of chatter that occurs in academic journals–sides chosen, battle lines drawn…each side does its own circle jerk.
I would suggest that the oildrum is a blog that works. Most, if not all, economic blogs fall into the latter category.
Backword Dave 10.05.05 at 1:54 pm
” blogs do not change politics one bit”
Since I discovered LGF, I’ve starting having serious doubts about universal suffrage.
Henry 10.05.05 at 2:21 pm
Chuck – it’s closest to the Foggy Bottom Metro stop – about an 8 minute walk.
Russell – won’t be posting the lecture (I tend to extemporize a bit). The ideas will be seeing publication eventually in a book that Dan Drezner and I hope to write sooner or later (I’m stealing the title of the talk from this project).
Seth – my rough take is that blogs played a significant role in Trent Lott’s resignation, a quite marginal role in the Rather affair (maybe accelerated the process a bit – but the program would have gotten hammered anyway) and a quite significant role in the Jordan Eason resignation (which itself was not at all important as a political event). But it’s hard to make hard claims on any of these – as it’s tricky to figure out the counterfactuals.
deva 10.05.05 at 2:51 pm
henry, will you make the text of your lecture available after the fact for those of us who don’t live in the DC area?
Another Damned Medievalist 10.05.05 at 3:59 pm
Nice essay in the CHE, by the way!
KCinDC 10.05.05 at 4:05 pm
That address seems to be a bit closer to Farragut North or Farragut West, though still 5 or 6 blocks away.
stormy 10.05.05 at 7:30 pm
About strictly political blogs: You have to hand to DailyKos for smelling the stench and finding the bodies….Put 70,000 posters out there…like 70,000 blood dogs…there is hope that the ugly smell out of Washington will be cleansed.
Henry 10.06.05 at 8:30 am
Farragut North and Farragut West work too – they are slightly farther as best as I can tell – but not by very much.
medievalist – thanks for the kind words.
KCinDC 10.06.05 at 10:51 am
Okay, sounds like Farragut North if you’re coming by the red line, Foggy Bottom if coming by blue or orange. Whatever difference there is presumably isn’t worth making a transfer to avoid.
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