Chris Bowers on the power of the Blogosphere
Chris Powers on MyDD touts a new site, pollster.com. I'm not really poll wonk, but I like what he has to say about the larger blogospheric implications of this site:
Now of course I'm not being entirely fair to large news and intelligence organizations. Their resources enable them to do things that we bloggers can't do. They have satellite networks, people on the ground in a zillion places (though maybe not as much as they should: I've heard both HUMINT and foreign news coverage have suffered cutbacks recently), and lots of money. And supposedly, they have elaborate systems to sort and prioritize all the incoming information. The blogosphere only has "emergent sorting": stories that get linked to and written about a lot get pushed to the "top" via Google hits, Technorati ratings, coverage on prominent blogs, and coverage in various aggragators. The right answer to any question you might have is probably in the blogosphere or on the net somewhere. The trick is picking that right answer out of the sea of crud that is also out there. This filtration and verification system is an advantage large organizations currently hold over the chaotic and decentralized blogosphere.
But I wouldn't be surprised if soon the blogosphere, wikis, YouTube, and other websites end up with a more robust data filtering system than news organizations and government intelligence agencies. I think systems that emerge organically are often more robust than those that are built artificially. This is a topic that deserves it's own complete discussion, of course.
I don't think news and intelligence agencies will disappear: rather, they will end up being seen as components of a larger information sphere, rather than as authoritative arbiters of what constitutes a fact. The Catholic Church was once a monopoly (at least in some parts of the world), but is now just one voice among many clamoring for spiritual attention. Similarly, organizations like CNN and the CIA are being seen as sources of information with various strengths, weaknesses, quirks and biases, rather than authorities. There's nothing special about them. I trust them to do some things well (tell me sports scores, give me the latest celebrity gossip, give me vital stats on various nations), and I'm skeptical of their ability to do other things (push any story that would reflect negatively on those who hold the purse strings).
Right now, the blogosphere is considered sort of a "side dish" that supplements what we get (and what governments get) from "mainstream" sources. My prediction is that the blogosphere, or some close descendant of it, will end up incorporating those mainstream sources.
It never ceases to amaze me how small, boutique sites such as Pollster.com provide far better information on elections in America than do large, establishment outlets. If small websites operated by two or three people can provide far better information on American elections than organizations with hundreds of employees such as CNN, what on earth are those large outlets spending their money on?I had some similar feelings on the Hezbollah rocketry stories when Maniak's armchair speculations were equalling or exceeding the information coming from major news outlets and even in some cases intelligence agencies (though with the latter case it's hard to tell what they actually knew vs. what their public statements let on that they knew). What the heck are we spending billions of dollars on when individual people seem to be able to do just as well for free?
Man, I love the blogosphere.
Now of course I'm not being entirely fair to large news and intelligence organizations. Their resources enable them to do things that we bloggers can't do. They have satellite networks, people on the ground in a zillion places (though maybe not as much as they should: I've heard both HUMINT and foreign news coverage have suffered cutbacks recently), and lots of money. And supposedly, they have elaborate systems to sort and prioritize all the incoming information. The blogosphere only has "emergent sorting": stories that get linked to and written about a lot get pushed to the "top" via Google hits, Technorati ratings, coverage on prominent blogs, and coverage in various aggragators. The right answer to any question you might have is probably in the blogosphere or on the net somewhere. The trick is picking that right answer out of the sea of crud that is also out there. This filtration and verification system is an advantage large organizations currently hold over the chaotic and decentralized blogosphere.
But I wouldn't be surprised if soon the blogosphere, wikis, YouTube, and other websites end up with a more robust data filtering system than news organizations and government intelligence agencies. I think systems that emerge organically are often more robust than those that are built artificially. This is a topic that deserves it's own complete discussion, of course.
I don't think news and intelligence agencies will disappear: rather, they will end up being seen as components of a larger information sphere, rather than as authoritative arbiters of what constitutes a fact. The Catholic Church was once a monopoly (at least in some parts of the world), but is now just one voice among many clamoring for spiritual attention. Similarly, organizations like CNN and the CIA are being seen as sources of information with various strengths, weaknesses, quirks and biases, rather than authorities. There's nothing special about them. I trust them to do some things well (tell me sports scores, give me the latest celebrity gossip, give me vital stats on various nations), and I'm skeptical of their ability to do other things (push any story that would reflect negatively on those who hold the purse strings).
Right now, the blogosphere is considered sort of a "side dish" that supplements what we get (and what governments get) from "mainstream" sources. My prediction is that the blogosphere, or some close descendant of it, will end up incorporating those mainstream sources.
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