Does Anti-Blog Cynicism Make Sense?
There's been a long brewing cynicism online toward the whole concept of blogs, but I find that most of it is pretty misguided. If you're up for a long read, Adam Curtis' take on blogging is an interesting counterpoint to the usual Web 2.0 optimism. However I find a few holes in his argument.
In short, Curtis criticizes the regurgitation of information on the blogosphere, the narcissistic nature of personal blogs, the idle chatter that clogs up the web, and the lack of journalistic standards and oversight to regulate what people say. He then goes on to argue that this has the effect of dumbing-down society, which is further satisfied by mainstream media who bend to accommodate the demand by featuring lower-grade news and programming such as reality TV.
While I'm the first to admit that many, many blogs are more or less useless, and that there are dumb people out there who worship opinionated pundits and reality TV, the more ominous part of his argument deals with the regulation and oversight over what people say and Curtis' ideas of managing a society for the greater good. His feeling seems to be that if anyone is allowed to say what he wishes, then bad information will perpetuate and therefore such information should be stopped or mitigated. He also seems to dislike the polarized communities that gather online - with blogs often serving as a focal point - in support of seemingly ludicrous causes such as left-wing nuts, right-wing nuts, conspiracy theorists, creationists, etc.
Is this really an issue though? Does his argument make sense?
When I walk down the streets of San Francisco there is almost always an evangelical of some sort with a megaphone preaching about the sins that he feels SF represents. Or a group protesting the war, or Palestine, or something of that sort. In certain bars you'll find loud discussions about why Bush is the devil, and in others you'll overhear people going on about why most people in SF are nuts and why we need a hard kick to the right.
It didn't take blogs or dumbed down media for this to happen. This has been going on in taverns and salons for ages. Such like-minded groups sparked the American revolution and many other movements. A group of twelve led by a rebel roughly 2000 years ago now serve as the faith for billions.
All blogs do is amplify and transmit. It allows those same discussions that have been going on for millennia to travel farther and faster. Blogging is web publishing made easy enough for anyone. Nothing more.
Clusters of left or right leaning blogs will have an agenda. Clusters of art blogs will talk about art. Current and former 'real' journalists also blog. To say blogs are a dearth to society is to say that mass communication is a dearth to society...print media included.
All blogs do is remove the need to know HTML or another language to get one's thoughts online. And one doesn't have to manually update their indexes every time they add a post. It's just type-click.
It's the original promise of the Internet realized - a place where anyone, no matter how small, can communicate widely to the world. A place where a poignant voice can overcome that of the mainstream mass media. And it happens every day.
All too often the cynics take on a parental view of society in which the uncleaned masses are powerless and/or too ignorant to resist the onslaught of mass media.
It is not the responsibility of a media aristocracy to educate and enlighten the masses. Democracy is about the freedom of anyone, no matter how misguided, to do and say what they want. To say 'this is how it should be' is to suggest a managed society, to suggest that the desires of some are somehow 'wrong' and in need of correction.
Morons will be morons with or without blogs or reality TV.
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