Public space and Weblogs within our society

My group discussion was Chapter 3 in Networked Publics by Merlyna Lim and Mark E. Kann, Politics: Deliberation, Mobilization and Networked Practices of Agitation. By engaging in that discussion over the last week or so, I was able to relate well to O’Baoill’s essay on Weblogs and the Public Sphere. Much of what I read about Habermas ties in with O’Baoill, thus reiterating the same concerns of the ‘power’ of the Internet and the potential for good and bad.

What does it take to be a blogger? According to Andre O’Baoill it takes a digital device, connection to the web and a little bit of time. Public space is available to anyone without discrimination, creating a safe haven for anyone to exercise their constitutional rights; more importantly their first amendment right. The sky is the limit when it comes to topics of blog. For God’s sake, we can blog about our dog’s potty habits or take it to another extreme and blog about Wall Street trends. But what is more important is how many bloggers are not as educated in their field and who is taking their work as gospel and disseminating it about their networks?

Public debates, or as some refer to them as ‘town hall meetings’ can be started with just a topic of interest in a network of similar interest people. Oddly enough, last week I was speaking to the Class of 2015 president (who has been my daughter’s friend since pre-k) and she was telling me how she went about campaigning for class president. How we got on to the subject was beyond me but the conversation took on its own life and I realized that these teen agers have the ability to use the Net for anything, including their own political GAIN!

She said that at the end of Junior high she had started a mini blog thru facebook and had a list of about 510 followers by the end of freshman year. Her blogs were school and activity related and she found that her audience trusted her to be the eyes, ears and voice of her class. Her audience began to depend on her blogs so that they were informed and had a better understanding of issues that were coming to life around them in the school setting. There is where ‘trust’ was built and her words became ‘believable’. She said to me “for some 8^th & 9^th graders, they use facebook and the Net for hurting and defaming people, I use it to help my peers and those in my community by helping them stay informed and allow them a voice in an area which is free from criticism.” For an 18 year old girl, I was quite impressed. And that is how she became Class President. She built trust, demonstrated transparency and became a trusted voice amongst her constituents. Megan’s blog was an “organized discussion among private people that tended to be ongoing” (Habermas, 1997, p.238), hence a weblog. Megan’s public space met the elements that Habermas refers to for successful public debate and participation. She allowed everyone who wanted to participate to join in, none were discriminated against, and any topic was up for discussion so long as it was legal. Here was a 13 year old who completely understood what was needed in order to build consensus and trust among her constituents. I was totally taken back by the knowledge and talent of young adult.

In O’Baoill’s essay he discusses RANK. This I feel is a critical piece in the success of any blogger. First and foremost you need to attract an audience and find a venue where those with similar interests will follow. For Megan that was easy because when you are a teenager in a school, the Nexus is the school and your audience is your cohort/peers. She said by 11^th grade she had had over 3000 people following her. O’Baoill makes a great point with regards to getting started and being followed in the blogging world. As it becomes more and more popular and many educated people in particular fields already have an audience, trying to break thru the labyrinth is not as easy. He insists that you must have a good reputation and your work will be tested. This should be a given but for some bloggers, there has been work copied from non credible sources and disseminated as truth. A blogger who is reputable, such as education expert, Diane Ravitch is considered a highly trusted, well respected and fairly compensated blogger.

As O’Baoill explains, public spheres, social networks and blogging in the form of a town hall meeting has caused some unrest in communistic and toleration nations. However it is understandable considering the temperament of a closed minded nation. In the United States, your access to any information is at a stroke of a key, in other countries there are far more restrictions. To some degree I do not blame some cultures for want to suppress parts of what our society brings to the table. Some of what goes on in our nation is embarrassing and needs to be curtailed. Many other cultures do not want to expose their citizens to the insanity we have to offer. For God’s sake, I don’t want my family exposed to some of it either, but the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave’ has taken democracy to a whole new level and the Net has just helped it get their even quicker. While I am on this kick, my next blog should feature Alexis deTocqueville’s, Democracy in America. After reading that, we can’t say a French Philosopher was wrong about our own demise.. that blog spot will be for another day.

 References:

 ^{O'Baoill, A. Weblogs and the Public Sphere . Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/weblogs_and_the_public_sphere.html}

Habermas, J. (1997). Institutions of the public sphere. In C. Newbold (Ed.), Approaches to Media: a Reader (pp. 235-244). London: Arnold.