The Year of the Blog
Note: The following piece is a post I wrote in 2004, though much of it is still relevant today. I am rerunning it in response to a request from the editor of Reconstruction, for their upcoming issue on the theory and practice of blogging.
Microsoft Word 2003 still underlines the word “blog” as a misspelling. You can bet that the next edition will not have that problem, because both the word and the phenomenon will have established itself firmly in the pantheon of 21st century communications. Apparently, there are now millions of us standing on our virtual soapboxes, peppering the Internet with our opinions, daily doings, stories of our pets and bad poetry. Blogging is an international phenomenon, and though the majority of bloggers come from North America and Europe, there are a few notables posting from the Middle East, Central America and other points on the compass, providing points of view and direct witness to events that would otherwise be completely foreign to most readers. And all just a click away.
The amateurish quality of many blogs has been much disparaged by professional media types, in the manner that the DIY punk bands of the late 70s were mocked by coiffed and spandexed rock superstars of the day. Yeah, there’s a lot of garbage out there, but Big Media has nothing to be proud of these days, either. Some bloggers are bandwagon-jumpers, their sites shuttered in weeks or months for lack of interest. Some are indifferent to readership, and use blogging as therapy. Among serious bloggers, some stick to specialized subjects (academics, cooking, crafts, etc.), others choose to comment on public events.
On my own site, Emphasis Added, I started out with ambitions to eclecticism. I read a lot, have many and varied interests, and live in a big city with no kids and therefore have plenty of opportunities to attend cultural events. With the blog, rather than bore my friends with my observations, I could bore a bunch of strangers (along with my friends) by taking a few minutes every morning to serve up a few paragraphs of prose. Politics and economics were always going to be a part of the picture, but as the months and years have gone by, those subjects now account for about 80% of what I post. Partly that’s a function of the times: blogging and giving money are about the only effective forms of political expression left to us. But partly it’s because those are the posts the start the best conversations, and that’s the part that really interests me.
A few of my very favorite blogs – both homemade and essentially professional – are extremely partisan and throw lots of red meat to the crowd. But when you click on the comment boxes, most often you’ll see an “amen choir” of like-minded readers, sometimes offering different perspectives, but usually from the same overall side of the issue. Occasionally, obnoxious trolls will come by to cause trouble, but they rarely seem interested in actual dialogue.
When people ask me what I am most proud of about my own blog, it’s that I have managed to engage an unusually broad spectrum of readers: those who share my perspective and several who most emphatically do not. I consider it a great accomplishment in this divisive moment to have readers willing to participate in a genuine discussion, and keep coming back. I may not draw the hits of a Daily Kos or Talking Points Memo, but I am more than satisfied with a smaller readership that feels empowered and entitled to engage in a respectful clash of ideas.
Whatever small triumphs might be achieved here, I bow humbly before a few giants of the blogosphere who not only offer informed opinion, but often provide substantive news, views and research that is simply missing from mainstream media. These sites, like blogs run by Steve Clemons, Juan Cole, Brad DeLong, and Dave Niewert (Orcinus), are every bit as expert and informative as any mainstream publication – and they are interactive and right up to the minute in their ability to follow current events.
The impact of blogging is already being felt in this years’ election cycle. Bigtime bloggers are raising massive dollars for candidates and pumping ideas up from the grass roots to the mainstream in record time. But below this top echelon, blogs are filling a void that Big Media can’t touch: what I call the “three C’s”: content, commentary and community. If you’re reading these words now, you’re part of the phenomenon. Rejoice, respond, and feel the power.
7:06:37 AM 
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