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June 25, 2006
There is a good article on the current relationship between the mass media and blogs by Jonah Goldberg over at the LA Times. He puts the shrillness of boisterous and partisan blogs into a media context. He says:
For various reasons, the post-World War II generation was unusually trusting of big institutions and elites. It grew up with the first real national media outlets. Following on the heels of radio, TV further united the nation... A handful of media outlets... dictated the terms of the national conversation. This was the era of the "vital center," when the establishment was marked by an astounding level of consensus .
He say that this kind of consensus was a historical one. Today we see this consensus breaking down on free-to air television. It is conceivable that within five years free-to-air TV's share will have dropped to 50 per cent of the total market, due to technological change but the long held, deep-seated resentment felt by many viewers about poor programming.
Things were also otherwise before 1945. Goldberg says that if you go back to the nineteenth century we find partisan conflict. Refeering to the US Goldberg says:
In the 19th century, newspapers played a different role from the one we think they're "supposed" to play. Newspapers contributed a sense of community to the boisterous new cities and towns popping up across the country. Alexis de Tocqueville observed that the young American democracy thrived on competing "associations" between like-minded citizens. But because these people could never all physically meet, newspapers were essential to American democracy because "newspapers make associations, and associations make newspapers."
And the next step:
American newspapers were never as unapologetically and uniformly partisan as European ones were (and still are), but they were still mostly creatures of specific political biases. There were Republican and Democratic newspapers, populist and communist newspapers, union and anti-union newspapers. These publications served as vehicles for partisan education and crusading personalities, in much the same way leading blogs do today.
Goldberg's argument is that blogs currently express this partisan conflict on the edges of the mass media consensus:
Take another look at the most flagrantly partisan websites today: the liberal Daily Kos and its conservative doppelganger, Red State. What you see are media outlets trying to serve the same function as newspapers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A work in progress, they often screw up...There will always be a need for serious, professional news-gathering organizations. But there will also always be a need for the politically committed to form their own communities.
It's probably a good thing that blogs are shrill, boistrous in their partisanship.
However I'm not convinced by Goldberg's argument. Are not newspapers and TV increasingly crusading and partisan? Are there not blogs that provide serious op eds?
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Gary,Our local papers in Perth would have to be the most bias in the country(Not that I read that many)The Sunday Times is so bias I am sure it is printed in Liberal Party H.Q.Every Sunday with out fail the editorial in the Sunday Times launches either into a love fest for the prime miniture or how the Labor Party started the bubonic plague.It is palpable.Half a page every week is dedicated to the rantings of Piers Akerman,say no more,say no more.
Is it any wonder the internet and blogs have taken off like a bondi tram,.The main stream media is scared to death by the internet,they I have no doubt are secretly(unless Im informed different) behind the push to have it censored.Of course this is not just about the plebs educating themselves with another point of veiw, this is about the loss of advertising revenue, as people are tending more to wipe their arse with a news paper rather than read it.Phill.