Hieararchy of blogging?
Lee Gomes has written an interesting commentary for Wednesday's Wall Street Journal that appeared on the front page of the Marketplace section.
In "Tech Blogs Produce New Elite to Help Track the Industry's Issues," Gomes asserts that the idea of a mass revolution of bloggers offsetting the top-down approach of traditional journalism is flawed because, as blogging becomes accepted, only a small number of bloggers appear to be followed widely as credible, so that the old elite are only replaced with a new elite.
Understanding the elitism in blogging communities is an interesting assertion but is important for understanding the social function of these communication technologies. Is it really fair to say that blogging only replaces one cultural elite with another?
Gomes writes that "the difference between the old media elite and the new blogging elite is that the latter gets redefined much more frequently. All it takes is attracting links from other bloggers."
Again, interesting to keep in mind as we here are creating our own blog and hoping for it to gain credibility. Why did we choose a blog? How is this blog positioning itself against other blogs that cover these various issues and technologies? And what stake do we have in competing with these other blogs?
Thoughts?
interesting point. if you assume that blogs are a network, one expects to see a power curve (see the linked in book) in how they operate. this would suggest that yes, there is a small number of groups that have inordinate amount of influence.