The evolving political blogosphere

Why blog?

Why spend hours writing posts about politics and making comments on other blogs each week, or perhaps each day? Although some might say every blogger has their own unique reasons, just for the purpose of this little prediction/rant I’m going to say there are basically two kinds of political bloggers.

The first is an individual who wants to write about politics, with the hope what they have written will be read by friends, foes and strangers, alike. This brand of blogger wants to influence public policies and elections. They want to rally the faithful and persuade the undecided. They want to change minds, if they can. They are operating with a measure of the jolly spirit of the “pamphleteers” of the 1770s in America. Not unlike their forerunners, today’s citizen-journalists want as large a general readership as they can get.

The second kind is a person who wants to be part of a camp of the likeminded. These people are aiming their words at a more narrow audience. Their posts are directed at other bloggers, not so much at readers who don’t blog. They join with their colleagues to routinely attack bloggers with whom they disagree, or to slavishly support one another in tiffs in the blogosphere. They are operating in the spirit of gossipy chat rooms. They remain furious at the mainstream media 25 hours a day. This group wants to share its wisdom, or lack thereof, with others they see as “insiders.”

During 2006 these two styles have existed along side one another on two of the best known of Virginia’s aggregating sites -- Waldo’s Virginia Political Blogs and Blognet News -- but, in truth, they aren’t really all that comfortable operating under the same roof. Their styles clash.

Thus, in 2007 the political blogosphere is likely to split itself into factions that will draw lines between the bloggers in the third paragraph and those in the fourth. There will be other ways of drawing lines, too, among them are the obvious traditional political parties.

One of the things fueling the current squabble in the Virginia blogosphere between Waldo Jaquith’s supporters and his detractors is the situation I’ve described above. This brouhaha’s clash of styles has sown the seeds for the coming of aggregating sites that will split the pamphleteer bloggers off from the gossip-mongers/attack dogs.

But the aggregator that will have the most power will still be the one that features the strongest blogs from both sides of the aisle, blogs which are run by responsible people who don’t hide their identities and actually have something worthwhile to say.

The most popular political blogs aggregators will be playing a huge role in the coming year’s politics, in my view. So, this post is not so much about putting anybody down, as it is predicting the direction in which this is all heading. Whether he intended to start this process today with his post about changes at his aggregator, or not, Waldo has helped to set this scenario in motion. Now we will all see where it goes.

Me? I blog because I’m an artist/writer who wants to communicate. I’ve been on that mission, professionally, for a long time -- about 35 years. And, in the last couple of years I’ve enjoyed being a part of the political blogosphere in Virginia, as it has been. Still, a good part of my readership sees SLANTblog as serving a local crowd with a variety of interests.

Now I’m looking forward to being some small part of the new political blogosphere, which is evolving in ways no one blogger could possibly control, but some of us can’t help but guess at what it will be like.