The real potential of the blogosphere
By 
Shan-ul-Hai •
August 18, 2008
Recently, a Chinese blogger visited Beijing to write about the Olympics. He ended up getting a visit from the local authorities, who aren’t exactly big fans of free press (China is ranked 163rd out of 169 countries on the worldwide Press Freedom Index). They escorted him out of the city and took him back to his hometown; meanwhile, another group of officials harassed his parents back home. To anybody who knows anything about China’s human rights record, this doesn’t really seem unusual.
So what’s the big deal? Well, I’d say that it’s the fact that we actually know about this specific incident. The blogger managed to use his Blackberry to post Twitter updates while he was being detained, so his readers (and others who became interested during the process) always knew exactly what was going on. Usually, when something happens in China, nobody knows about it… but this guy managed to use the blogosphere to get his story out to the masses. This doesn’t tell us much that we didn’t already know about China… but it does give us an insight into the real potential of the blogosphere.
Blogging has the power to become an art form, but only if we can weed out the people who don’t know how to write and have nothing to write about. If we can somehow get rid of the people who are only blogging for the purpose of generating ad revenue, we will be left with a very useful source of original writing. We have already seen the ability of top bloggers to influence the public… maybe we’re not too far from the day when quality online writing becomes a significant measure of public opinion and a novel source of original policy ideas.
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Wow, that sucks. We have the same problem in Iran… Just out of curiousity, what link is that blog? I’d love to read it! Also I’ve linked this website on my page so readers can check it out.
I definitely agree that there are a lot of garbage blogs out there. How many blogs are dedicated to making money online? How many promote racist, sexist abelist garbage on a daily basis? The more and more I look through the blogosphere though it seems like the garbage is winning.
EXCELLENT POST!
I 100% agree with you. While my own posts are not always inspired opinion nor essays, my writing on occasion reaches a quality that even surprises me. Such as my current post questioning Michael Phelps’ designation as the greatest Olympic athlete of all time.
In addition to looking to the blogosphere for great writing and opinion, I’m finding it is rapidly becoming my choice for political analysis and for primary news accounts. Granted, much in the blogosphere is a waste of bandwith–and some of my own posts do fall into that category, almost every television broadcast or so-called news account is rarely anything more than a snippet of a wire report from AP or Reuters. There is not a lot of insight in what is being published, and as the talking heads have increasingly become owned by ratings and adrevenue rather than journalistic values, this situation will only escalate. It’s really no surprise our society is becoming dumber as a whole.
Bloggers, however, are independent voices that can say and write things that can not be broadcast by news agencies that rely on maintaining their commercial interests rather than their journalistic integrity. And really, this is the best kept secret of the internet. Bloggers know how to call a spade a spade. The key, I think, to really elevate blogging is the news media in the United States. The more we blog, the more we articulate intelligently, the more we market our blogs and build readerships, the more traditional news media will become increasingly unsatisfactory for the those soaking it up on the nightly news or in their daily rag.
Of course, really serious blogging takes effort and it’s ridiculously hard for individual bloggers to maintain such quality, market the blogs, build readerships and hold down day jobs and meet the needs of their families.
The answer may be a coalition of bloggers working together to create a blogger news site that resembles a newspaper. Get an editorial team together to cover the world news, national news, local news, entertainment, and the arts….package it like USA Today online and bloggers will supplant the newspaper industry. This will take time and commitment, but the technology to make this happen is at our disposal and it’s just a question of will.
There’s the model. I’m willing to collaborate. Who is with me?
Hey Shan and the Globally Rational Editorial Staff–I have backlinked to this post and linked to this blog in my current post: Olympic Lessons. Thought you might want to take a look at it.
I agree entirely, both that there is an awful lot of really awful dross around, and also that there is huge potential for power in blogging. In between though, there are people who blog well, but perhaps not with the voice you would like. There must be room for reasonable entertainment too, wouldn’t you say? All work and no play etc…
Did you hear about this from somewhere? There are many rumours doing the rounds out there.