The Coming Anti-Hillary Blogswarm–from the Left?

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
Natasha Celine of Pacific Views (and a veteran blogger of the "sleepless summer" of Howard Dean) writes to me: The idea of Hillary Clinton running for president really sounded good to me right after her 2000 campaign, but she killed my enthusiasm with her votes and public statements. She's wandered between Republican apologist, warmonger, 'moral' crusader and ardent supporter of women's rights. Or maybe healthcare. As if the last things should make up for all the rest of it, as if Democratic politicians haven't figured out that supporting women's rights and better health care is literally the least they can do. A floor, if you will, as opposed to a ceiling. It would be putting it mildly to say that I'm disinterested in her candidacy. See her entire letter in DOCUMENTS section in left sidebar. Also: "Sonoma" comments on Bob Kunst's open letter to Hillary Clinton: "No one- and I mean no one- despises the Bushites GOP more than I. But if HC...
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Bloggers as Local Content Creators

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
As I noted in another post, Bill Keller, editor of the New York Times, characterized blogging by the following: "Bloggers recycle and chew on the news. That's not bad. But it's not enough." Just today, ("Reliable Sources", 01/01/06) Howard Kurtz, in the midst of a discussion about the decline in newspaper circulation, commented (with a smile) that "bloggers, as you know, have a grand old time kicking around the MSM, the mainstream media, but if newspapers went away tomorrow, where would they get their information?" In both cases, they meant that bloggers just "chew" and "talk" about big news items in big media venues. This is obsolete analysis at several levels. It is based, partly, on vanity--the "mirror effect": big time national journalists only read blog posts that are about them, and assume that all blogging is reflective of (and reflexively aimed at) them! Let me offer one example here--I elaborate on dozens more in my book BLOGWARS--of bloggers who are creating original content at the local level. (more…)...
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Is Kos the King or the Kingmaker–Oops…

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
Mickey Kaus responds to a previous PolicyByBlog post on HC, the grassroots and blogging: Hillary's Secret Challenger; Now he can be revealed. By Mickey Kaus/Updated Monday, Jan. 2, 2006, at 4:57 AM ET Hillary vs. the Blogs, cont.: From David Perlmutter-- Politicians have always needed to balance the base and the middle. Blogs make this tension, if not more difficult, more public. Emphasis not added, but appropriate. Perlmutter writes seriously and smartly about Hillary Clinton's dilemma in this regard, though: a) He takes Kos rather too seriously, calling him "a political kingmaker." (Oh yeah? Name the king); b) He underemphasizes the extent to which Hillary's character--specifically her innate and exaggerated caution, calculation, and need for control--makes her a particularly bad match for the blog age, maybe as bad a match as Nixon or LBJ were for the TV age in 1960. Perlmutter notes that blogs and blog readers reward risk-taking passion and honesty. That he then actually mulls over the question of whether Clinton herself should...
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Do Bloggers Wear Political Blinders?

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
UPDATED Earlier I discussed the issue of whether bloggers wore political blinders, that is they tended to only read, quote and trust other blogs of the same political feather. By bloggers, of course, we mean both people who edit blogs, that is have their own blog and the greater number of people who read and/or comment within blogs. I argued that while this stereotype was in part true, based on my studies of my students, it was not a black and white world, of, say, conservative blogs and blog editors and readers never reading Daily Kos or MYDD. One research study on this question--which did not look at blog readers but blogs themselves--reinforces the view that partisan readership is a tendency not a chasm. A study by Lada Adamic (of HP Labs) & Natalie Glance (of Intelliseek) of posts and blogrolls of "A-List" liberal and conservative blogs between the period of August 29, 2004 and November 15, 2004 found that partisan bloggers tended...
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BLOGWARS (The Book) Inches Closer to Publication!

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
This website began as an extension of a book--BLOGWARS--that I am writing about political blogs. But blogs are forever unfinished, their work always to be continued, revised, and extended later. Describing political blogging in a book that takes a year (and now much more!) to research and write and another to publish is like giving NASCAR commentary via stone tablets. Snapshots of the big picture of blogs will be dated by the time you read the book. But that is the point: A blogger’s work is never done, nor, I hope, is that of a student of blogs. You post an item but you cannot then triumphantly declare your mission completed as you could with a printed book or an academic journal article. Your blog readership, if you have one, expects you to return again and again to old issues or to move on to new ones. You cannot coast or rest on your laurels; your readers will abandon you or,...
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Interview with polblogger Tony Trupiano (Democratic candidate for Congress)

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
Shearon Roberts, an LSU Masters Student working for the Wall Street Journal, conducted a series of interviews with interesting and innovative political bloggers as a project for a class I taught. She talked to Tony Trupiano (Democratic candidate for Congress in Michigan’s 11th district) who blogs at: http://www.tony4congress2006.com/blogs/ How involved are you in operating the blog, making posts and reading comments? The blog is one of the few things that I am 98% present in. I do my own blogging, I do read the blog. I think it’s a great communication too. I think it is an opportunity…you give people access…not so much to the candidate but to the process. I find blogging to be almost therapeutic at times. And it’s a great communications tool. How frequently is the blog updated? At least once a week. I mean if I had time, I’d love to do it everyday. And I’ve kind of kind of fought this idea that somebody else can blog for...
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Should Book Authors Blog?

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
I begin my new Oxford University Press book BLOGWARS by claiming, only half facetiously, that there are good reasons not to write a book on political blogs and the rise of interactive social media's role in campaigns, elections, and public affairs and policy-making. My analogy is that d escribing political blogging in a book that took three years to research and write and another year to publish is like reporting a NASCAR race with stone tablets. I think I captured the origins of politicking via social media like blogs (and now YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) through October 2007, and so far my predictions of the 2008 race have been pretty good. New stuff is happening so fast, though, that it's hard to keep up. But that is the point: A blogger's work is never done, nor, I hope, is that of a student of blogs. Bloggers cannot coast or rest on their laurels; their readers will abandon them or, worse, ask...
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BLOGWARS IS OUT!!!

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
This blog was started when I began writing a book about political blogs: BLOGWARS: THE NEW AMERICAN POLITICAL BATTLEGROUND. Now, finally, the book is out from Oxford University Press. More about the book on OUP's site. Some early publicity: --Interviewed by Ohio public radio--it is available on podcast. --Excerpted on the "page 99 test" blog. --Reviewed by Joseph Rosenbloom in the Boston Globe. Originally posted March 26, 2008 at PolicyByBlog ...
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BLOGWARS on Washingtonpost.com

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
I was interviewed by Chris Hopkins for the Washington Post about political blogging. It was a webchat with him typing my responses to live questions. An edited transcript follows. The link to the full transcript is here. Friday, May 2 at noon ET Books: 'Blogwars' David D. Perlmutter: Journalism Professor, University of Kansas. Friday, May 2, 2008; 12:00 PM online to explain how and to what extent political blogs influence campaigns and legislation, and how they serve to improve democracy and enrich political culture. ____________________ David D. Perlmutter: My name is David Perlmutter, and I'm a professor at the University of Kansas, and for years I've researched political communication, and three or four years ago I started paying attention to a raucous new venue for political communication, blogging. I saw it particularly in the Dean campaign. My new book, BLOGWARS, tracks the rise of political blogs in prominence and influence in general, the entry of political blogger into the corridors of political power and their integration into the...
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BLOGWARS on the DAILY SHOW with Jon Stewart (May 8)

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
I am scheduled to be on the DAILY SHOW with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central this Thursday (May 8) to talk about political blogging and my book, BLOGWARS. Everyone's first piece of advice for me about being a good guest: Don't try to be funny. I think I can manage that… The Daily Show has become an institution of American politics very much linked to a culture where people--especially younger voters--seek out political information from non-traditional sources. [A KU student (Nathan Rodriguez) in our school's master's program is writing his thesis on the show, to some extent based on his time as an intern.] The show is part of the political culture it satirizes and, in some cases, influences it. The show is considered a source of information, an explainer of politics, and of course a "speaker" of (funny) truth to power. TDS's effects are hard to quantify: Think in terms of Saturday Night Live's "effect" on the Clinton-Obama race! However, there...
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