Going to the blogs...what are they good for?

The online magazine spiked ran a seminar at IBM on Wednesday aimed at 'putting the blogging phenomenon in perspective'. James Crabtree, , Brendan O'Neill, Bill Thompson, Perry de Havilland formed the panel to explore... '...are blogs revolutionising journalism, or have people in the traditional media lost faith in their own authority, leading them to talk blogs up? Do blogs enhance democracy, or do they make a virtue of narcissism and navel-gazing? Does a dangerous clique of bloggers wield unaccountable power, or are these bloggers simply exercising their right to free speech on an exciting new platform?'

Bill Thompson has been having fun with bloggers recently in a BBC piece, suggesting that blogs may go the same way as newsgroups 'as more and more sites are created by people with less and less to say.' At the event he appeared to recant and was enthusiastic about the empowering capability of self-publishing for the masses.

I seem to remember the same sort of thing being said about Free-nets, community networks and past tech-driven solutions to community building ....hmmm

James Crabtree, self-confessed member of the smallish but vocal group of bloggers that see the tool as significant for democracy and civil society, mused on whether the current clubby feel would change - for good or ill - as AOL brought millions into the field.

My point at the event was that blogging is about blogs (tech tool) and bloggers (people). Shouldn't we spend more time on the people side to understand what value blogs may be? To be a blogger you need to be confident, literate, interested in self publishing, and have something to say. To make a difference someone has to read it, and/or promote it in other media. As Gail Bradbrook of comm.unity pointed out, 50 per cent of the population are not using the Net. Maybe we shouldn't expect too much of blogs.

If we want to help people use new technologies to make a political or social difference, we'll need to look at a range of methods so that people can choose those which suit their preferences - and the purpose - best. Think communication ecology, not best species.

One thing that did strike me forcibly about the meeting was how conventional and top-down it was (in contrast to the rhetoric about blogging). No badges so you didn't know who was who, no hosting so cliquiness was reinforced, top table of white men, theatre-style rows for the rest of us, presentations then questions. Unfortunately pretty typical in the policy community.

Sandy Starr chaired with very fairly, but how about being a bit more bloggy, breaking into small groups with panel members, and giving everyone more chance of a say? Perhaps IBM said they couldn't move the chairs. So much easier in cyberspace.

Still good value for £10, though, and in a good case since 'spiked is an online publication with the modest ambition of making history as well as reporting it. spiked stands for liberty, enlightenment, experiment.'