Questions for "Can Blogs Revolutionize Progressive Politics?"

All answers by James Wrona

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 for them to get their campaigns out much easier to a younger demographic and a more minority focused demographic through the use of such sites as: Facebook, twitter, and tumblr.

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

 - Blogging encourages digital media convergence because when someone has something to say, regardless of their expertise in the subject, they can publish their thoughts to the rest of the world who can then share it with all of their friends and send it along to everyone and they can then access it through all of their means of access including mobile devices.

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 the people who are going to be most impacted by the topic that is covered in the blog are 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. By simply clicking a subscribe button on a blog, you are automatically notified when a blog that interests you has a new post much like when you are subscribed to a newspaper company or a magazine and they send it to your house whenever a new version 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, like I mentioned earlier, is all about interactivity between users on the blogosphere. Blogs can become the real bearer of freedom, democracy, egalitarianism, and participation in that regard because absolutely anyone who has access to a computer and has an opinion in their head, they can share that information with the rest of the world who can then share it with their friends who share it with theirs and then they leave their thoughts on your thoughts and it goes on and on. Blogs are the perfect outlet for digital media convergence in that regard.