Empowering Blogtopia
Wed Jul 14, 2004 at 03:03:52 PM PDT
We often complain - and rightly so - that the media lacks objectivity and is not sufficiently critical. The media plays such a crucial role in forming public opinion that our democracy depends on these characteristics in our press. Ill-informed voters a democracy doesn't make. It is often said around these parts that blogtopia might someday - if it hasn't already - provide a "check and balance" to a media that's subjugated by corporate influence and pressure from the WH.
If we believe that blogs might indeed be the solution to the bias in our media we would do well to be proactive in extending the reach of blogtopia. The rise of BlogAds has already provided a market-like framework to help support and even grow sites like dKos. Could a collaborative and proactive marketing strategy for blogs significantly increase readership... and therefore its political power?
A
report by the Pew Research Center states that by August 2003, 64% of the adult population (over 18) use the Internet and more than three-quarters of those between the ages of 12 and 17 use the Internet. The total Internet population by August 2003 was over 126 million, with 66 million users on a daily basis. That's a large market considering the dKos currently gets ~140,000 visits a day (much less in terms of unique visitors).
Another Pew report in January 2004 says that 13% of all Americans - or 20% between the ages 18-29 - get campaign news from the Internet (not necessarily from blogs). Of the people who read blogs, a study by BlogAds tells us that 43% consider themselves "opinion makers", while only 23% are "one of the guys/gals".
So it appears that most of the blog community is comprised of activists, which makes sense since one has to seek out alternative views in order to stumble on blogs. The only way blogtopia will extend its reach to the less politically active is though a marketing campaign that includes traditional channels such as TV, print and radio. We already have a slew of demographic information to support an effective marketing strategy. For example, the Blogads survey indicates that only 20% of blog readers are female - need some improvement there. Another Pew report tells us that: In the early days of the war with Iraq, 77% of online Americans used the Internet in some connection with the war.
There are likely plenty of volunteers - on dKos alone - to do the market research and targeting or to work on the ads themselves. The problem would be in financing the promotions. Contributions from users might detract from political contributions, however, I would ague that marketing blogtopia would ultimately lead to a greater sum of contributions through a larger user base. Initiatives such as dKos 8 lead people to believe that their contributions are meaningful and more useful than traditional methods of contribution. I would bet that those who fork over money on dKos contribute more than they did before joining blogtopia.
Instead of user contributions, perhaps financing for a marketing campaign could be established through a BlogAd type organization that funnels profit from one or more blog-based ads to promoting blogtopia as a whole... similar to the Nasdaq commercials. Perhaps government funding is possible, under a model similar to the BBC in the UK.
I'm sure many people fear that places like dKos might become overrun with too many users, but the expansion of blogtopia has much room to grow horizontally, if not vertically. Kos himself has already expanded his enterprise by recently adding dkosopedia and ourcongress.
I don't trust that our media will correct itself anytime soon. Democrats may regain leadership in the government, but the media will retain its faults and a significant amount of people will remain ill-informed. Without marketing tactics of our own it may be another few decades, if not longer, before blogtopia empowers us enough to take back our democracy.
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