This article was posted to MetaFilter yesterday. It’s fairly dense, but this jumped out at me near the beginning:
“Despite countless attempts to feature blogs as alternatives to mainstream media, they are often, more precisely described as “feedback channels”. The act of “gatewatching” (Axel Bruns) the mainstream media outlets does not necessarily result in reasonable comments that will be taken into account…To “blog” a news report doesn’t mean that the blogger sits down and thoroughly analyzes the discourse and circumstances, let alone checks the facts on the ground. To blog merely means to quickly point to news fact through a link and a few sentences that explain why the blogger found this or that factoid interesting or remarkable, or is disagrees (sic) with it.”
(emphasis mine)
I liked the reference to “gatekeepers” which reminded me of my media criticism days back at university. Before the web really took off, I remember my profs all getting into a lather about how our reality was constructed for us thanks to the gatekeepers at the major media outlets. As we know, we are told not only what to think about, but how to think about it.
The thought that the web, and blogs in particular, might “level the playing field” hasn’t really proven to be the case. Bloggers aren’t necessarily competing with major media outlets – they’re just watching the gates and commenting on what’s coming out of them. It’s got me thinking a bit differently.
Anyway, the article is fairly dense, and I haven’t had time to read it all the way through yet. Just wanted to share that. More to come.