Iowa Bloggers Flex Their Muscles

Reporters from around the world will cover next week's Iowa caucuses, but they won't be the only ones explaining the arcane process that helps select our next president. Local bloggers will be filing their own field reports, and according to Wired, they're making an impact:

...local blogs have now risen to play a pivotal role in the squeaky-close 2008 primary season -- courted by the presidential campaigns, and taking the pole position as vehicles for new negative stories or previously unvoiced viewpoints that can quickly grow into controversial national discussions.

The article flags the Iowa Independent, which I check to get a feel for local developments beyond the Iowa newspapers. Apparently it gets lots of media traffic: combined with three other state blogs in its network, the blogs have been cited over 280 times in newspapers this year, while their writers have made over 170 broadcast media appearances.This kind of attention is critical, because most blogs do not affect public discourse without amplification by the traditional media or political elites. That is the "triangle" that Peter Daou suggested in a seminal 2005 Salon essay:

... blog power on both the right and left is a function of the relationship of the netroots to the media and the political establishment. Forming a triangle of blogs, media, and the political establishment is an essential step in creating the kind of sea change we've seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Simply put, without the participation of the media and the political establishment, the netroots alone cannot generate the critical mass necessary to alter or create conventional wisdom.

Top national bloggers are increasingly reaching that critical mass -- like Kos appearing on Sunday talk shows and writing a column for Newsweek. But to advance meaningful, decentralized "people power" across the country, local blogs written by regular activists are equally vital, so this is an encouraging development.

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Ari Melber writes for The Nation, where this post first appeared.

Follow Ari Melber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AriMelber

Comments

[DontSpin]

Frankly, I disagree with the first sentence about bloggers from "around the world" covering the Iowa caucuses. People from Kenya and Dubai may care about our actual election, but it would be a bit too self-centered for us to think bloggers in Europe or Asia care about this one of many many steps that we take every time we want to elect a president. We have to stop pretending like the U.S. is the center of the world.

[NoFactsJustTruth]

Faux was always worthless propaganda, but the first time I saw Russert become a TOTAL mouthpiece for dick ...cheney, I remember thinking OUR news choices would soon be Pravda, and Pravda.


Long live HuffingtonPost and the other web sources NOT owned by national media!

[mommadona]

Now, THIS is Democracy in action!

Historical, shall we say?

[Qbear]

I'm hoping some of the LGBT bloggers will be on the ground in Iowa. I'll be looking to see if the Human Rights Campaign and Stonewall Democrats PUSH to have the most LGBT delegates ever, comes true. The queer muscle will show in the larger Iowa cities, Des Moines, Quad City and Ames. Obama if he's going to get LGBT blowback from McClurkin FIASCO, it will show up in those 3 city's caucuses.

[cloudy]

It would be interesting to have a daily discourse, with links, about blogs in ALL the early (pre-Feb 5) states and the trends that they reflect.

That would make a great daily column for Huffpo (any volunteers???????????)

[kirotahoe]

since the msm is controlled by so few people, the blogs and online activity is the only free press. everything else is bought and sold. if the msm was truly free, candidates like biden, dodd, ron paul, kuchinich, etc. could possibly be elected.