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May 13, 2008
In consideration of the the Victorian blogging debacle, in the context of the budget, bearing in mind the state of the Liberals everywhere, in relation to Brendan Nelson, and from the perspective of a political expert, Christian Kerr had a little dig at the blogosphere yesterday.
The headline (probably not Kerr's idea) reads:
Blogs help Libs divide and conquer themselves
Powerful things, blogs. Andrew Landeryou, blogger, who seems to have broken the story, expects much worse to come since it looks as though very few Victorian Liberals didn't know what was going on. Perhaps the Victorian Liberal Party bloggers can claim to be the first Australian bloggers to claim a political scalp. Does it still count if the scalps in question are their own?
It hardly matters since, as Kerr observes:
Real political professionals know that the Australian blog world is insular, often ignorant and has virtually no influence on mainstream debate.
Jeez, I don't know about that Christian. The bloggers in this case were real political professionals, as pathetic as their levels of professionalism may have been.
When you said the Australian blog world is insular, were you aware that you were blogging? Did you mean to infer that the many commenters on your blog are all part of this insular Australian blogdom of which you are a part?
Often ignorant. If you're talking about particular blogs or bloggers that may be true, sometimes, but as an interactive network it's far from ignorant. In fact I'd argue that the sometimes scary levels of expertise are part of the reason the blogosphere is so small.
As for having virtually no influence on mainstream debate, I'll assume you're not using the term 'mainstream' in the Janet Albrechtson sense, in which the mainstream doesn't really exist. That mainstream is too busy watching Australia's Funniest Home Videos to debate about the Victorian Liberals. You must be talking about politics in news media, in which case 'mainstream debate' refers to infighting among the commentariat.
Or perhaps influence is supposed to be the big idea here. If that's the case, I'd suggest that Victorian Liberal Party bloggers currently have an enormous influence. Big enough to help the Libs divide and conquer themselves, in fact. And ruin the budget for the whole Nelson-led party in the view of political experts. Experts who get published in mainstream media.
Maybe debating mainstreamers everywhere will be tempted to take time out from Australia's Funniest Home Videos to find out what this blog thing which brings down oppositions is all about? Or will they explore the Ozblogosphere only to be disappointed at its insularity, ignorance and lack of influence? In which case they'll have to settle for reading about how a blog can wreck a party in the newspapers. And on telly. And the radio.
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Lyn,
nicely done. Kerr is just parroting The Australian's line that blogs are useless despite the Australian---and News Ltd---- having lots of blogs.You have a sense that behind the conservative's distaste for blogs stands the meme of the "revolt of the masses". What Kerr misses is the way blogs play with, and toss around, ideas. He has little time for ideas.
I love Kerr's line about real political professionals, given that most of them are factional party hacks as opposed to policy wonks. Just like Kerr was--a Liberal Party hack. He is now more of a publicist in the process of becoming a television pundit. These pundits are saying that the blogs 'gotcha’ commentary and attributions of bad faith causes the decline of reasoned discourse that Kerr and the Australian stand for and defend. It's mythmaking.
However, it is true that the characteristics of insularity and lack of political influence do apply. Are the political bloggers trying to gain political influence? I doubt it. They are more about widening the forum of debate and discussion in a liberal democracy at this stage. The political blogs are marginalised, but that says more about Australia's public sphere than the quality of the political oggers.
On the other hand, the political influence of intellectuals waned during the years of the Howard regime whilst academics have focused more and more on writing for other academics. Weblogs have facilitated the rise of a new class of non-academic intellectuals, even if the A class weblogs are academic based.
Bloggers continue to be spurned by the media gatekeepers who seem to live in some kind of fortress of their own making. So there is no open flow of ideas between the journalists, bloggers and think tanks. It's still all back channel stuff in the market of ideas.