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It's worth asking whether the blogos is in fact essentially an oppositional space. If Democrats and the Conservatives are both able to function effectively in building up a head of steam in a way that the government party cannot, is this energy, in fact, an expression of the frustrations of legislative powerlessness rather than any intrinsic quality of the Net ?

keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Fri Nov 14th, 2008 at 03:41:36 PM EST
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Blogs serve as media when they break news but the only real power comes from their fund-raising abilities.  As usual the politicians kiss up to whomever has the cash.
by paving on Fri Nov 14th, 2008 at 04:20:40 PM EST
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It's multi-faceted...

  • I think we can all feel that it's easier to build up a head of steam in opposition compared to in government. Especially when the government is basically unpopular. It's easier to build a tribal feeling that way.

  • Of course, part of the "known unknowns" is that we're looking at the recent creation of the blogosphere. We'll see if the Obama years simply see a decline in the Dem blogs and a rise in Repub blog, or maybe just a rise in Repub blogs to some kind of new parity?

  • Another element is dissatisfaction not with legislative powerlessness but with existing media. The lefty blogosphere in the US was in part a conscious effort to use the new medium to combat the Repub echo chamber that was rooted in talk radio.

Likewise, for better or worse, UK Tories loathe the BBC much more strongly than centre-left types do. There's also the notion that the relative diversity of UK newspapers has slowed the growth of the blogosphere overall. One reason for the rise of Tory blogs is that the comment sections of The Telegraph and Times and Mail only appeared in usable forms relatively recently, while The Guardian was experimenting with talkboards for a lot longer and got something people felt able to use a lot earlier.
by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Fri Nov 14th, 2008 at 04:23:36 PM EST
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It would be nice if all the right wing blowhards would piss off from CiF cos several of the more interesting subjects tend to get very hostile comment threads.

keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Fri Nov 14th, 2008 at 04:28:12 PM EST
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Yes. Definitely.

However, I don't see it happening... once trolls are bedded in, they are really hard to get rid of. Besides, the Guardian is purposefully choosing articles with a right wing stance to:

a) Generate more flame wars (more hits)
b) Please the American audience (many of whom are "libruls" but on things like foreign policy that puts them on the right-wing for the UK.

I guess my hope is that once Labour loses the next election, the "opposition effect" plus the poisoned state of CiF should help some decent lefty blogs to emerge.

by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Fri Nov 14th, 2008 at 04:46:22 PM EST
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Lefty blogs already exists, like the truly dismal "Harry's Place". Sad old tankie politics, the dreary nostalgia for '68. I'd rather have Cameron in charge than listen to those fossilised leftist relics.

there really is no non-Marxist based liberal socialism in this country. nobody understands co-operatives, nobody remembers methodist leftism. Just crappy watered down leninism for the believahs.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Fri Nov 14th, 2008 at 05:06:55 PM EST
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Please note, I said "decent lefty blogs" not just "lefty blogs."
by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Fri Nov 14th, 2008 at 06:12:14 PM EST
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We still have the problem that decent Lefty blogs can't do much without an outlet.

dKos and the rest are industrial cash machines. I can imagine a lefty blog collecting cash to buy media time - rather like the atheist bus campaign - but that's a very indirect way of getting your point across.

Direct campaigning on specific issues is largely useless. You can have your camping holiday and your fifteen minutes of media attention, but the effect on national policy will be zero. Local issues may be more successful, but the anti-populist mindset is so entrenched in government that the faintest whiff of attempting to define policy will have the police opening a terrorist file on you.

What's missing in the UK is direct political accountability. It would certainly be possible to increase that, but none of the ways I can think of are likely to be popular with their targets, and some of them are likely to be very unpopular indeed - even though really all we're talking about here is basic investigative journalism.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Fri Nov 14th, 2008 at 08:26:09 PM EST
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