Understanding the information market
Fri Oct 29, 2004 at 06:18:38 AM PDT
I was originally going to post
this in the excellent diary located here. Then it got waaaayy too long, so I've made diary.
We have the Reporters, the Hacks, and the Bloggers, all playing around in the same information-dissemination field. The Reporters and Hacks, as you've said, would like to think of the Bloggers as similar to themselves. Actually, I contend, the Bloggers have more in common with the Hacks than the Reporters. The difference is, the Bloggers don't spout meaningless talking points, rather, they create the memes and frame the discussions that end up getting turned into talking points by their respective political organizations. This the advantage and responsibility for the Bloggers-- they have the ability to affect policy and message, but they have the responsibility to do it in a reality- and fact-based world.
This is where the Freepers fall flat. They create (and parrot) talking points, but it's usually poorly researched and knee-jerk. I think the argument can be made that liberal (at Atrios, Kos, etc...) Bloggers, while quick to respond to "threats" from the opposing side, are not a knee-jerk community. And Bloggers (at least the liberal ones I enjoy) know the difference between a talking point, a story with legs, and a true situation of gravity that needs to get "out" which the Bloggers are far more effective at researching than the Reporters.
We know that Bush has lost more jobs than any president since the great depression. This is a talking point and one chink in the armor of Bush. We also know that he's created some jobs to fill back the lost ones. His problem is that it has not been enough and he can't overfill the backlog. Good for us, bad for them. Note how there is always a deeper level to the talking point, and the entire fact actually presents both sides of the argument. I posit that this one in particular favors Kerry either way.
We don't know and don't care what the "bulge" is. But we know it's one of those off-topic, stupid diversions that the Reporters and Hacks love covering so much more than actual news. So we push it because we know how to work the system.
We know that the Sinclair issue was political theft and a serious issue that deserved attention. The amazing decentralized Blogging organization and actions watered Sinclair down and pissed off the Freepers, while garnering attention from Reporters and Hacks and creating talking points for the Dems. So this was a big win and demonstrates the power of the decentralized liberal Blogging organization.
Liberal Bloggers are Liberal Pragmatists. They eschew progressive values and understand the system, and know how to make their viewpoints gain momentum and power and turn them into action. It's a marked change from the way the media has run for 20 years now. But if they are going partisan in an effort to pump ratings, so be it. At least our hearts are in it.
So Bloggers do it without the financial incentive. Reporters do it, somewhat without the financial incentive (everybody but the top reporters get paid a pittance), and Hacks do it primarily for financial gain. I like to compare public realization to the iPod phenomenon. It goes like this, and please see the similarities to the Kerry campaign and try to look forward to the demise of the corporate-media message machine:
When the iPod was introduced, it was roundly criticized as being too expensive, and predicted to be a flop. Critics said that music on the go was not valuable enough to people that they would spend that much for a device that doesn't even play CDs. A small group of devoted fans snatched it up and praised it's functionality. They showed their friends who were equally impressed, and eventually bought ones for themselves. The thing worked very well at the function it was designed for. A second wave of iPods were introduced which included enhancements and garnered better press coverage, but overall, critics still said it was too expensive and there will be other players just as good at much better prices. That never materialized. Positive press about the functionality of the new iPod continued to drive growth in the market, essentially creating a market where there was none before. People buying these were mostly in the urban centers of America. By the time of the third revision to the iPod, and with the additional press of a new software enhancement for PCs included, the iPod really started taking off. It had been about a year to a year-and-a-half by this point, where the rural areas of America is starting to get the message and gain interest. So when the fourth incarnation of the iPod came out, in a variety of choices, press coverage fever was very high and the rural America was finally involved in the same spending habits as the urban areas, But it took two years to get there.
I think there is a realization gap in America and it applies to all national messages. The awareness of messages, be they marketing, political, whatever, take two years to trickle from the urban centers to the rural consciousness. It has to do with press coverage (message dissemination), word of mouth (message value), message awareness (knowledge), message acceptance (buy-in).
Kerry is at the 1 1/2 year mark with his message. The presidential election is coming just at the point he's penetrated the rural areas well. And penetration of message in rural areas is a good measure of message acceptance in urban areas. I would guess (completely made up) that the rural message awareness (knowledge) to urban message acceptance (buy-in) is something like 1:10 in reality.
It all comes back to the vehicles which we have at our disposal to distribute message. Reporters try to spread even-handed facts (even if they're not actually facts), Hacks spread rumors and talking points for financial gain, Bloggers (at least liberal ones) spread facts and build cases. We have to accept that we are at the mercy of the same market forces for information that everyone else is. The difference is our hearts are in it and we understand the competition better than they understand us.
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