Outline for talk at Professor Kang’s Media class

[Outline for my talk in Jae Kang's Media and American Modernity 2.0:
The Internet and Political Culture, at the New School]

Obama and Bloggers During the Campaign

My post, A Brief History of Obama and the Political Blogosphere, will be used as a way to introduce the topic, and frame out “the politics of blogging.”

In it, I describe how the 2008 Presidential campaign saw a split in the liberal blogosphere, between Obama and Clinton supporters. The image of the net savvy candidate the news media liked to portray in Obama was, in truth, something much more complex:

The political blogosphere, though, has never been uncritical of Obama; indeed, the history of the Obama and the blogosphere reveals a contentious relationship, one that demonstrates how bloggers today are continuing to do what they do best — put political pressure on elected officials.

This pressure continues today, as bloggers have organized to protest Obama’s intention to approve the latest FISA legislation. The protest, in fact, marks a significant turning point — while the 2008 campaign saw an unprecedented use of social media, it turns out, social media can work in reverse. Just as the Obama campaign provided the tools to allow supporters to organize and help him win the primary, his supporters have turned the tables and are using my.barackobama.com to attempt to push and shape his political positions.

Today, the netroots largely support Obama, yet have also continued to push back on his positions on issues such as illegal wiretapping and torture. As bloggers exist within networked publics, they form and un-form groups easily, and as needed. There is no monolithic “blogosphere,” and it is likely the politics of blogging will continue to be in flux, perhaps shaping around issue-based activism, rather than party-based.

The Case For and Against

The liberal blogosphere’s political stand with respect to Obama was described in two excellent posts by Chris Bowers, at Open Left:

The Case For Distrust:

Because President Obama flip-flopped on FISA: Finally, I don’t trust President Obama himself because he flip-flopped on FISA due to right-wing pressure in the campaign. During the primaries, he vowed to fight telecom immunity tooth and nail, but once the primaries were over, he just flat-out flipped his position. This was a straightforward case where President Obama changed a position as a result of shifting political pressure. The conclusion I drew from that event is that it is possible to change Obama’s public positions if there was enough political pressure for him to change, and that such pressure was necessary because he was willing to cave into right-wing demands if they applied enough pressure.

In short, FISA was the “distrust and pressure” object lesson for me.

The Case for Trust and Support:

There are some very progressive aspects to President Obama’s background. Two that always stick out in my mind are that he spent time after college as a community organizer and found religion through a church that preached liberation theology. Experiences such as these can only come from a person who is open to left-wing ideas. Obama simply must view progressivism as something to take seriously, rather than as the caricatured fashion it is often portrayed in our national political discourse…Further, while President Obama often uses anti-partisan and anti-ideological language that many center-right pundits and Democrats have often used to mean “let’s capitulate to Republicans and conservatives on everything,” his background as a person of mixed-ethnicity suggests a very different possibility. President Obama has long been required to navigate between apparently dichotomous worlds, and the fact that he was able to become the first African-American President of the United States indicates that he is very good at this navigation.

Liberal bloggers and the press

While Drezner and Farrell’s “The power and politics of blogs” does an excellent job of describing the blogosphere, I think it does not stress enough the antagonistic relationship bloggers have with the press — in some ways, it makes this relationship seem too cozy. This, in fact, is one of the main reasons the blogosphere formed, as a counter-balance to what liberals saw as failing in corporate-owned news media.

Markos Moulitsas, “kos” of Daily Kos, recently began a blog post with: “Newspapers don’t respect and value their readers.” He went on to describe a conversation he had with an editor at a newspaper, asking how they could become more acclimated to the web — they had tried comments, but the editor described a reporter a calling it “graffiti.” Kos concludes:

I wonder what happened to that “star columnist”, whose arrogance back in 2003 prevented his newspaper from taking its first tentative steps toward a more collaborative and inclusive product. Those publications that survive and eventually thrive once again will be those who harness the creativity of their audiences and encourage not just their passive consumption, but also their active participation in the news gathering, analyzing, and dissemination. On this front, the track record of the newspaper industry has, thus far, been dismal.

Bloggers don’t want the press to go away; they just want the press to do a better job. Yet it’s impossible not to hear at least some contempt in that post.

The Politics of Twitter

Finally, there is Twitter. While in the early days of blogs and the news media, each party wrote about each other (that is, bloggers commenting on the failings of reporters, news sites adding blogs and stories about blogs), today on Twitter, bloggers and journalists can interact directly. Where the contentious relationship between bloggers and journalists used to play out across a variety of media spaces, today they take place within Twitter.

Journalists, pundits, politicians, celebrities, and the everyday Joe are chattering away. Suddenly, the Joe Scarborough’s of the world are interacting with the public in a way they never have before…..directly and without a filter. Whether responding to questions about Morning Joe segments or his favorite soccer teams, Joe is tweeting like mad. And he’s not alone. @GStephanopoulos, @jaketapper, @Shuster1600, @tamronhall, and so on. The list of twittering pundits is growing by the minute. But, what is the appeal for them? Why have they gone so utterly crazy for Twitter? Reading through their tweets, I was struck by how engaged they are with their “followers.” Twitter allows them to interact like they might in the comments section of a blog. In short, Twitter has allowed them to become bloggers…albeit in a micro-form.

(Note a significant backlash to Twitter from many of the kossacks in the comments on the above post, as well as here.)

And journalists, so often behind in terms of their understanding of new media, are struggling to adapt:

Everything you need to know about the DC journo establishment, from ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper’s Twitter feed:

Breaking- PrezObama on Leno jokes about being a bad bowler- says it’s “like the Special Olympics or something” http://tinyurl.com/bholeno about 12 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Am trying to imagine the reaction if President Bush joked that his bowling skills recalled the Special Olympics. 3 am- we just landed in dc about 6 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Preparing for day of hypocrisy: conservs who would normally defend the SpecOlymp joke acting offended, liberals saying lighten up. Sigh about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Late Update: Tapper gets his revenge: He has “blocked” me from following him on Twitter.

Additional topics

- Also worth a discussion is the business of blogging. See: here, and here.

- And how does Twitter help or hurt the business of blogging?

Wikipedia’s Tangled Web

Ars Technica has a write-up on a legal battle Wikipedia has decided to take on:

Two artists attempted to create a performance art piece by establishing a Wikipedia entry entitled “Wikipedia Art,” which could then be freely edited and “transformed” by anyone choosing to do so. The page lasted a mere 15 hours before being summarily deleted by Wikipedia editors and admins. Now, the pair’s archive and continuing discussion of the project is being threatened by the Wikimedia Foundation’s legal counsel, which has effectively threatened to pursue legal action against the artists for trademark infringement.

The case calls into question the ideology behind Wikipedia; that is, how ideas such as “neutral point of view” structure or even determine what ends up in Wikipedia’s page. The Wikipedia Art project aimed to get at exactly that — by calling into question the standards the wikipedians have created for their content, these critical artist have exposed Wikipedia’s reliance on things like the mainstream media to validate what and what should not be “knowledge.”

This, of course, is a terrible thing, in the sense that Wikipedia merely becomes an extension of a corporate-owned news media and other such “official” organizations, rather than an all-encompassing body of digital knowledge:

“Wikipedia Art is an art intervention which explicitly invites performative utterances in order to change the work itself,” reads the archive of the original Wikipedia post made by artists Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern. “The ongoing composition and performance of Wikipedia Art is intended to point to the “invisible authors and authorities” of Wikipedia, and by extension the Internet, as well as the site’s extant criticisms: bias, consensus over credentials, reliability and accuracy, vandalism, etc.”

The pair meant for the article to be a functional critique of Wikipedia as an information source, using Wikipedia as the “venue” and its users as participants in the “performance.”

And, of course, there’s a real irony here, called out by Ars Tech:

…a non-profit foundation’s online knowledge repository, which largely exists because of free speech and fair use, is threatening legal action that could stifle free speech and fair use. That irony, however, seems lost on the Wikimedia Foundation. Like previous legal action against Wikipedia itself, the threats seem to draw attention to the Wikipedia Art site and make Wikimedia Foundation look bad, playing right into Kildall and Stern’s project. Hopefully Wikimedia Foundation will see the folly in pursuing this action and, instead, focus on its core mission: to provide a free, online encyclopedia of “notable” human knowledge.

Definitely something to watch.

Review: Ashes of American Flags

“Thank you. See you tomorrow night.”
- Jeff Tweedy

With the above line, the new Wilco film, Ashes of American Flags, closes. It’s not a question that’s posed here, or a statement, or even a suggestion. It is an imperative: We will be here tomorrow night.

Because, as the band’s lead singer and songwriter Jeff Tweedy explains, this is what Wilco does. Night after night, town after town, they play. They are a touring band, a band that first and foremost must be seen live, and this new film, from directors Christoph Green and Brendan Canty, brilliantly documents a group of musicians in their element, and, arguably, at the peak of their career.

Green and Canty capture five nights of Wilco in five cities: Tulsa, New Orleans, Mobile, Nashville, and Washington, DC. Along the way, we catch glimpses of the band off stage, in very un-rock-star-like settings. We see the toll that performing takes on them, with post-show ice treatments for guitarist Nels Cline, who says he gives himself whiplash nightly and is trying to prevent two vertebrae from fusing, and drummer Glenn Kotche, who bloodies his hands each performance. We see the requisite Tweedy monologues, airing his opinions on what art and music are for and should be. Most revealing, we also see Pat Sansone using a Polaroid to photograph the Main Streets through which they travel — a dying technology capturing these dying towns, as he puts it.

In a sense, the anachronism of Sasone’s photographic mission is something of a metaphor for the band itself, for Wilco seems to be a band that is somewhat “out of time.” They are often associated with indie rock scene, although unlike many of the bands that play venues such as Coachella and SXSW, Wilco has a sense of a maturity about them, a polish and precision that contrasts with much of today’s music scene. (I’m talkin’ about you, White Stripes.) At the same time, while they’ve been around for a while, Wilco has somehow managed to not only persevere, but reinvent themselves along the way, churning out better and better music. (Unlike, say, The Dead, who are currently touring, playing the old songs sans-Jerry, or Bruce Springsteen, who for all his accolades has been making incredibly forgettable music lately.)

That said, this is at its core a concert film, and the songs chosen for it reflect both the versatility and virtuosity of the band. It includes concert rockers, like Kingpin, with Tweedy and the audience screaming back and forth, Monday, and A Shot in the Arm; there are also more melodic songs, such as Side with the Seeds and Ashes of American Flags. The variety of songs really give the viewer the feel of a typical Wilco concert, especially due to the incredible sound mixing. I don’t know if it was just that the theater had a great sound system, but this may have been the best sounding film I’ve ever attended (very curious to hear the DVD at home…). A few of the songs were sound checks, and without the audience cheering and screaming and other noises that come along with a live show, this was some of the cleanest, most well-balanced music I’ve heard.

And while some personal favorites were not included in the mix (Pot Kettle Black, Kidsmoke), the performance of Impossible Germany alone makes this film worth watching. Three guitars, with Nels Cline — who comes out from this film as the real star behind Wilco’s music, and deservedly so — playing seemingly impossible lead runs, all building into a crescendo of sound that exemplifies everything one needs to know musically about this band.

These moments of crescendo are what makes Wilco worth seeing live, and what makes this film so special. As the filmmakers told those of us in the audience at the IFC theater last night, this was a labor of love for them — fans setting out to make a proper film, a film that not only documents but respects the music.

And that word “respect” is probably the right term, and the reason Wilco works today as a band. Unlike their previous film, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, a film about great music emerging from conflict, Ashes documents even greater music emerging from relationships that work. You can hear it in the way each band member complements the other in the film, and you can see it in the way they smile at each other when they’re playing — these guys are having fun, they are good, and they know it.

For anyone who has never seen Wilco, this film is an excellent introduction. For fans, it’s a reassurance that Wilco really is as good as we remember them to be in concert.

So, yes, Jeff Tweedy. We know you will see us tomorrow night. And the next, and the next.

And, if I can speak for Wilco fans everywhere, we look forward to seeing you, too.

Using Social Software to Avoid Socially-Awkward Situations

Subtitle: I’m Just Not That Into You

Much has been written about the new types of social situations that arise when using social software. Breaking up over text-messaging, seeing ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends connecting with other people on Facebook, the “do I or do I not friend this person” question, the soon-to-be-finance seeing the wedding ring purchase ahead of time — these all happen because social software has reconfigured what the term “friend” means today, and because social software has turned upside-down our previous notions of public and private.

In our new age of Web2.0 connectedness, going online unavoidably means getting yourself into awkward social situations.

Yet, in the vast research* which I have conducted to date, I have not found anyone writing about the way social software helps us avoid these situations. (*Research question: Do I remember ever seeing this written about? Answer: No. Research, complete.)

What has been under-appreciated in all the hype about the net today is the power of the Ignore button, and its various various forms across websites: The Unsubscribe; The Block; The Remove. These all help us avoid the kinds of awkward social situations we face both on- and offline, by letting the other person know that we do not want to connect. That we don’t really care about what they are doing online, who their friends are, and what their status might be each day.

By hitting ignore, we tell the other person, “Hey, I’m just not that into you.”

And this is OK. Better than OK, because it gets us out of those sticky situations we get into when we have to deal with people that, truth be told, we really don’t like.

You know how it goes. Let’s say you go home, to visit the folks, and you make the mistake of heading out to your local mall. You see someone you knew from, say, high school. Oh noes!!! The conversation you have always has a voice-over running in your head simultaneously, and it usually goes like this:

Me (in head): omg omg please don’t look at me please don’t look at me

Dude: YO DUDE!!! SHIT! How are you? WTF you been up to man?

Me: Heeeeeeyyyyy…..great to see you! Not too much! Same old same old!

Me (in head): FUCK.

Dude: How long’s it been!?!?!? Since high school, no? Hey, you remember that time…

[...this goes on...]

Me (in head): please don’t ask for my phone number please don’t say we’ll get together when we both know we won’t

Dude: Hey, man — give me your number. We have GOT to get together and HANG!!!

Me: um….yeah….

You see the problem here? The social protocol in these situations is to pretend that we’ve reunited and bonded, that even though it’s been 20+ years, and we have completely different lives, there is still something that connects us.

Wrong.

Now, imagine this same situation, but played out on, say, Facebook:

You have a friend request.

Would you like to confirm [insert person you haven't seen in years here] as your friend?

Confirm Ignore

IGNORE.

See! So easy.

Now your former friend gets the idea — you are just not into him.

This, then, is the power of social media. It’s not to help connect us to others. It’s not developing a “social graph” upon which we can build a “network” of “relationships.” Those phrases might sell investors, and get the news media writing about your product. But it has nothing to do with what social software can do for us, really.

The power of social media is that we can ignore. That we can tell others we’re just not into them, without the messiness of actually telling someone we’re just not into them. We can be an a-hole, but we can be one silently; implicitly…

We can go about our day, secure in the knowledge that not-connecting with someone is only a click away.

Doga?

WTF?

NYT, without the slightest hint of irony here:

Doga combines massage and meditation with gentle stretching for dogs and their owners.

Silly me! How could I have not realized the therapeutic benefits of PUTTING A DOG ON YOUR STOMACH WHILE YOU STRETCH.

I fear for the very soul of this nation…

Advice To News Industry

This is from Dave Winer, and while he’s giving it to the AP, it pretty much seems applicable to the whole lot:

Focus on what you love about news, and then bring more of that to the insatiable users of news. If you’re making people happy, they’ll find a way to keep you doing it. It’s like Napster in 2000, the music industry was complaining while millions were freshly excited about music, for the first time in 25 years. People were talking about music on airplanes, in supermarkets. There had to be a way for them to make huge money from that, instead they tried to stop it. AP — same thing, now in 2009. We love news. We don’t love what the cable networks are providing us. The papers are folding. Get on top of the Internet, don’t try to crawl under it. Best advice I can offer.

Good advice.

ESB’s Going Green

NYT:

Owners of the New York City landmark announced on Monday that they will be beginning a renovation this summer expected to reduce the skyscraper’s energy use by 38 percent a year by 2013, at an annual savings of $4.4 million. The retrofit project will add $20 million to the $500 million building makeover already under way that aims to attract larger corporate occupants at higher rents.

Oh who cares — I just wanted an excuse to post one of my photos of the ESB!

Stupid Human Tricks

Actual call to 911:

“My car will not start. I’m locked inside my car,” the unidentified woman said.

“Nothing electrical works. And it’s getting very hot in here, and I’m not feeling well.”

The dispatcher asked the woman if she was able to manually pull the lock up on the door.

The woman said she would try, and then, she said, “Yes, I got the door open.”

IA

Brilliant:

“Equal protection under the Iowa Constitution is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike. Since territorial times, Iowa has given meaning to this constitutional provision, striking blows to slavery and segregation, and recognizing women’s rights. The court found the issue of same-sex marriage comes to it with the same importance as the landmark cases of the past.”

TMI

Markos Moulitsas tweeted his vasectomy today, which makes me think that Andrew Keen was right.

heh heh