Twitter: Still Pointless
February 6, 2010 1 Comment
Shrewd Sarah Palin/Gullible Media
Today, Dave Weigel documents another set of examples of this, demonstrating the ways in which the media’s (and, for that matter, Palin’s opponents’) insistence on paying attention to her Facebook and Twitter ramblings, making them into major stories, even if with the intention of disproving those ramblings. The entire post is worth a read and does an excellent job of showing exactly how the media and some of her more vocal critics are playing right into Palin’s hands. I especially liked this paragraph:
The problem is that Palin has put the political press in a submissive position, one in which the only information it prints about her comes from prepared statements or from Q&As with friendly interviewers. This isn’t something most politicians get away with, or would be allowed to get away with. But Palin has leveraged her celebrity — her ability to get ratings, the ardor of her fans and the bitterness of her critics — to win a truly unique relationship with the press. She is allowed to shape the public debate without actually engaging in it.
Weigel goes on to present a couple examples of this strategy in action, and concludes that Palin’s actions are “incredibly savvy,” but that the media’s response to those actions “is ridiculous, bordering on pathetic.” I couldn’t agree more. Again, please do read the whole thing.
December 23, 2009 10 Comments
Politics As Tweener Chat Room Blather
December 23, 2009 4 Comments
Somebody had to say it
November 13, 2009 8 Comments
Imma Let You Finish
October 21, 2009 1 Comment
Being Stupid Makes Us Stupid
The current outage just caused a moment of reflection on how we increasingly use new forms of technology in very post-postmodern ways that intertwine the subjective and the objective in interesting ways. Truth becomes a collective excavation of infinitely networked negotiations towards a reconciliation of acceptable perspectives that cohere to a felt experience.
I tried to break down at what I was driving in the comments and, all-in-all, I remain committed to that conclusion. But one can’t deny or ignore the counter examples that fly in the face of seeing emergent technologies as wholly a good thing. To wit, I stumbled across a story about the rise and fall of rumours surrounding Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley’s death intentionally started by booking agent and blogger Andrew Bucket (pseudonym) on Twitter just to see how far one tweet could go.
The result? Further than you might think. [Read more →]
October 19, 2009 7 Comments
I hear tweet tracking is a growth industry
October 8, 2009 1 Comment
Lament for a Dying Medium
Maybe this is a romantic view of news gathering, but I think we’re guilty of buying into an equally romantic vision of the future of new media. Twitter, YouTube videos, first-hand accounts of clashes with riot police circulating around the blogs; these are all fascinating nuggets of information. But taken individually, detached from any broader context, they mean very little. In some cases, they’re downright deceptive. Does anyone think Twitter users in Tehran represent an accurate cross-section of Iranian opinion? I suspect rural farmers are slightly under-represented, though perhaps they’ve got a hashtag floating around somewhere (Reactionary Rural Iranians on Twitter – RRIT?). More significantly, does anyone think the spectrum of tweets highlighted on Andrew Sullivan’s blog represents an accurate cross-section of Iranian opinion? This is not to criticize Sullivan, but he’s one man with two interns, not a news agency with access to credible sources on the ground.
New media enthusiasts started out by criticizing the way newspapers report the news, but in recent years the debate seems to have shifted from a critique of their methodology to a critique of the very notion of professional news-gathering. We’ve gone from conservatives criticizing the media for liberal biases to conservatives criticizing the need for a “mainstream media” in the first place. So now we’re saddled with ridiculous outfits like Pajamas Media, which purports to replace newspapers but is in fact parasitically dependent on their reporting. Original commentary is all well and good, I suppose, but there’s not exactly a dearth of opinion floating around the blogosphere.
And now for my dirty little confession: I want somebody to filter my news consumption for me. I want editors and fact-checkers and analysts to sift through the news of the day, ferreting out false information and reporting on the relevant stuff. I want experts available to inform me. Yes, I know – I have no agency; I’m ceding control of information to corporate media conglomerates who want only to dictate my consumption patterns; I’m playing into the hands of an establishment that has no interest in serious reporting. But here’s the thing – I want a filter for news consumption. I’m not qualified to come up with informed opinions about the issues of the day absent some sort of expert analysis. I think blogs have levelled serious and worthy criticisms about the way we report the news in recent years, but these are reasons to change the filter, not get rid of it altogether.
July 1, 2009 7 Comments
kindle v twitter
June 17, 2009 4 Comments
June 15, 2009 Comments Off
Snark of the Earth, Dagnabit
May 28, 2009 6 Comments
quote for the morning
April 20, 2009 1 Comment
