Blogging and Democracy

Blogging has been touted as the saviour of modern mediated democracy, however the great things about blogs are the very same things that make them incapable to fulfilling this role.

Blogs are widely regarded as providing a less abstracted alternative to conglomerate dominated infotainment – however is it really possible for blogs to replace more traditional sources of political information such as television news and newspapers?

The problems with blogs are similar to those inherent in Habermas' ideas about the public sphere, do the most people really want to spend their time learning and discussing political issues? or do they want to be told facts and discuss only relatively uninformed prejudices? Do people want to be informed or do they want to know? The mindsets of the majority of people in modern democracies (let alone the rest of the world.) are thus incompatible with the 'culture of unfinish' of digital media.

Blogs are restricted from these roles by many same flaws as other supposedly demotic hybrid media forms such as public access television. For example the inability to find a real balance between populism and informative value (which is obviously extremely subjective.) Because most bloggers goals do not include gaining wide readership or being explicitly entertaining their appeal is limited. Peter Merhole's metaphor of 'informational upchucking' is an appropriate one.

Blogs provide an amazing resource for the small group of people who have the time, technological resources and the will to spend their time learning and discussing. However they still encourage the creation of a critical class rather than having a more universal appeal. Irrational democracy still holds strong despite technological developments.

The problems of modern democracy will not be so easily solved.

- Linus Norman