Questions for “Can Blogs Revolutionize Progressive Politics?”

1.     Why do the Democratic leaders embrace blogging as a potential political communication considering the traditional media landscape in politics?

Democratic leaders embrace blogging as a potential political communication because it allows them to reach out to a younger, more Internet-based demographic through the use of different popular websites like Facebook or Twitter.

2.     Blogging encourages a participatory culture. In what way does the participatory culture in blogging expand digital media convergence?

Blogging encourages the expanding of digital media convergence because anyone can post their thoughts online, regardless of their expertise in the subject, they can publish their thoughts to world.

3.     In the article, the author says: “The ability of the Internet to erase geographical distances can become a structural weakness in elections where district lines and eligibility are key.” How can blogging counter this weakness in the process of turning the netroots to grassroots?

Blogging counters those weaknesses in the process by making sure that those individuals most impacted by the article will be the ones reading it. Because of that ability to access the information more easily, it gives it a much more basic feel as opposed to being so complicated. When you subscribe to a blog, you are automatically notified when that blog has a new post – like when you are subscribed to a newspaper or a magazine and they send it to your house whenever a new copy is released.

4.     The author spends the second half of the article discussing the lack of diversity in current blogosphere dominated by elite bloggers. Please use the concept of digital convergence to explain how blogs can become the real bearer of freedom, democracy, egalitarianism, and participation in the new media communication?

Digital convergence’s main goal is interactivity between users on the blogosphere. Blogs can become the real bearer of freedom, democracy, egalitarianism, and participation because absolutely anyone who has access to a computer and has an opinion can share information with the world.