Can the Clintons Harness the Blogs? (USA Today)

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
I wrote this essay for USA Today in response to a meeting between leftbloggers and former President Bill Clinton at his Harlem headquarters. Along with my forthcoming book, BLOGWARS, it argues that blogging has "arrived" in politics today. Politicians and political professionals (as well as journalists and media workers) are "blogging up," and trying to figure out how to use blogs in their business. Note: One of the big differences between your own blog and writing for the mainstream press is that you get edited by the latter--something I always accept (along with a check!). So, for example, I wrote the piece just after the blog lunch, but it was not printed until now because the paper wanted to put it closer to the election, which made sense. In any case, the original is below. A few lines that were cut--mostly for reasons of length--are now restored. How will the Clintons harness the political force of the blog? By David D. Perlmutter USA Today, Monday October...
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Live from the Front Lines–The (Blogged) Words of War

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
Update: The Interview on podcast. Another example of blogging morphing with other media: The Press release from BlogTalkRadio: Tuesday October 17, 2006 - On October 19th at 7 PM est., Scott Kesterson an embedded reporter with the US Army's 41st Brigade in Afghanistan will be calling in live to BlogTalkRadio.com for a one on one interview with David Perlmutter. This is Scott's first live interview since being embedded at the beginning of March 2006. Scott will be discussing what is going on in Afghanistan behind the scenes and on the front lines. From his first hand experiences alongside our solders during battle armed with only a camera, to filming our troops training of the Afghanistan National Guard. Interviewing Scott will be David D. Perlmutter; David is a professor and associate dean for graduate studies and research in the William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. He writes regularly for the Chronicle of Higher Education and has published over 130...
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The Boss Is Watching Your Blog!

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
On the heels of the HP corporate scandal is a timely article from Annalee Newitz of the NewScientist.com news service, which explores blogs in the context of employee monitoring. The concept of companies monitoring their employees to ensure productivity is not new, but the relatively quick ascendancy of the blog as a medium demonstrates that innovation has once again outpaced legislation. Mainstream media has widely reported that the line between public and private spheres is being blurred with the steady evolution of the pda. But today’s companies are taking things a few steps further, as Newitz notes, “log into work computers from home and employers can track what blogs you create, sign into or post to, or what you write on newsgroups, even outside work hours.” Suddenly the blog begins to look less like an outlet for personal expression and more like a minefield of potential missteps disallowing employment or advancement. The National Workrights Institute (NWI) in Princeton states that current laws...
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Remnants from Rumsfeld: The War of Ideas

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
a.k.a. “Bush and Rumsfeld and Iraq and Troops and “Terror! or Insurgen!” and “Mess” In what was dubbed a “referendum on Iraq,” voters in the midterm elections were characterized in mainstream media as casting votes not necessarily for a particular candidate, but against the war in Iraq. And while in some cases such a blanket statement is inaccurate, the very fact that it is was mentioned with such recurring frequency suggests it played a materially significant role. The GOP was battered with barbs from both the right and the left in the weeks leading up to the election. The generic charge was that they were “out of touch” with reality. One of the chief targets of criticism was the recently-retired Donald Rumsfeld. In what may be viewed as an appropriate parting gift, The BBC reported the Department of Defense established a new program at the Pentagon to “boost its ability to counter ‘inaccurate’ news stories and exploit new media.” The program is designed...
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The Daily Blog

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
As a longtime viewer of both shows, it is both surprising and easy to understand why The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have garnered such a large and loyal following. They utilize a methodology that is familiar to bloggers: filtering through a number of “news stories” and providing a provocative caption for the action. The back-to-back shows have become “must see TV” for many viewers that are dissatisfied with mainstream sources of information, again a common reason that people flock to blogs for insight. The current issue of The Rolling Stone features Stewart and Colbert on the cover, bearing the title “America’s Anchors.” The interview itself demonstrates the utter ease with which the duo uncovers the humor of any situation, from the moment that Maureen Dowd set the recorder down: “’I had one like that in 1973,’ Colbert notes. ‘I thought it was a chaise,’ Stewart says. ‘I was going to lie down on it. I suppose there are two...
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Zombietime, Blogs, and the Anti-War Movement

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
UPDATED As of this writing in winter 2006, there is a paradox in American politics. On the one hand, we are fighting an unpopular war in Iraq--at least as measured by public opinion polls. (See below for more on this complex question.) On the other hand, there is no visible large-scale anti-war movement in the traditional sense. Many explanations are possible for such a seeming contradiction. Practically speaking, the lack of a draft relieves most young people of a sense of personal connection to the struggle in Iraq. But the Internet in general and blogs in particular have provided an outlet for activism and for creating organizational links between people distant from each other in space but sympathetic in politics, so that one could make a case that there is simply no longer a need to take to the streets. Perhaps the “whole world” is marching and watching via blogs, YouTube, Facebook and MySpace? But there is another side to the...
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BlogWorld & New Media Expo 2007 Presentations

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
This week I am presenting at the BlogWorld & New Media Expo, 2007 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas. I will moderate two panels. Created by blogger Rick Calvert, BW will be the first business expo to showcase blogging as well as the other interactive "new" media. The array of talents and sponsors is impressive. The first panel , on Thursday, Nov. 8 will focus on "The Power of Political Blogosphere." The scheduled panelists include: Hugh Hewitt, Pam Spaulding, Dave Nalle, Taylor Marsh, and Brad Friedman. On Friday, Nov. 9, I will moderate "Political Blogs Vs. The Political Press" featuring John Hinderaker, Brad Freidman Mary Katharine Ham, and Taylor Marsh. Here are the current drafts of my presentations. Originally posted November 6, 2007 at PolicyByBlog ...
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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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Emergency Twitter: A Case of Possibilities

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
Sharing information quickly: that's a basic aspect of blogging or any other new social interactive media. A good example of the positive possibilities of such a rapid dispersal of data comes from Jim Groom, who is an instructional-technology specialist and adjunct professor at the University of Mary Washington. He was attending a presentation at the University of Richmond when suddenly, the campus experienced a lockdown after a report that a gunman had been sighted at the library. At the time Groom was in a basement room and could not get a cell phone signal--he could however twitter, the short-blog format venue where you can quickly upload 140 character messages. He describes his twitter "tweets" in his blog after the events... "I had no internet access on my laptop, and asked Tom to log me into a UR computer so that I could get a sense what was going on. I went immediately to Twitter, as did several other folks from UR who were...
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State of Visual Communications Research (AEJMC 2008)

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
Another presentation that touched on political blogs: David D. Perlmutter. "The State of Visual Communications Research." Presentation to a luncheon of the Visual Communication Division of the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication at the Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Ill., August 8, 2008. Originally posted August 18, 2008 at PolicyByBlog...
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