The role that blogging has in democratic practices is often argued on whether it has a positive or negative impact. Alvin Goldman argues that it is negative, while David Coady and Richard Posner defend blogging. I argue that blogging has improved democratic practices because of; the difference in ethics between bloggers and journalists, the filtering and censorship differences, as well as media ownership issues. I’ll compare blogging to the mass media so we can analyse the differences and critic the unique properties of blogging.
To evaluate whether or not blogging has improved or negatively influenced democratic practices, we need to understand and define blogging, and the overall role it plays in our society today. A blog can be defined as a personal website or page, that an individual or collective group update over time, and add new content, much like a journalist. They attempt to draw in viewers and maintain that viewership with quality content (or their interpretation of quality). Topics can vary depending on the blogger, but nothing is off limits because of the uncensored nature of the Internet, which is the medium they write on, compared to journalism, and their monitored medium of newspapers and news stations.
Alvin Goldman has several arguments about blogging destroying the integrity of journalism by saying that it’s “undermining professional journalist”, “it lacks balance”, and that it’s “a threat to good democratic decision-making”. I argue however, that blogging is just another type of citizen journalism, and that it’s a modernised version of journalism. While it is undeniable that some blogs are extremely unbiased, and do not seem as professional as journalists, consider the mass media today, there is clear evidence of biased headlines and articles, especially when considering political issues and elections. It’s illogical to claim that blogging is unbiased, and state that the mass media is not. It can be argued that in the mass media, they have a gatekeeper (an ombudsman) to review content before it is released, and must use very reliable sources to validate their content, contrasted to a blog, who only has themselves to critic the quality and validity of their work before it is published. However, in the blogging community, there are countless amounts of people writing about similar topics, so the collective research that will go into a blog post is greater than a professional journalist, it is easier to edit and cross reference facts in a blog, but that does not necessarily make it more reliable than the mass media.
Both journalists and bloggers have desires that keep them motivated, however they manifest in different ways. Bloggers have the desire to attract and maintain an audience, while journalists have their peers and boss’ to impress, and even economical desires through them. They seek promotions and raises, and some are willing to write and publish blatant lies to achieve this as pointed out by Coady. It is important to remember that journalists do not have complete control over the content of their material. They must report to their higher power because of this, we have to take into account that the information content may be altered in different ways to please their boss’ political agenda. This is my main argument as to why blogging has improved democratic practices. If we can consider again, the fact that bloggers have no higher power to report to, there are more positive than negative outcomes of this, because they are completely uncensored. Their writing is uncensored, so we can obtain a clearer overview of the topic they are writing about. The only moral and ethical standards of writing they have, is those that they impose on themselves. Mass media’s higher powers censor and alter events to align with their own political agenda, and this interferes with democratic practices, and confuses and pollutes the voting publics views on political issues and voting.
I have argued that the difference between bloggers and journalists are a crucial positive improvement on democratic practices, and I will now argue that the difference in ethics can have a positive impact also. The main difference in ethics between journalists and bloggers is that journalists have an ethical duty to report on both sides of a story, and attempt to convey it in an unbiased manner. The only standards bloggers have, is those of which they impose on themselves, and because of this, many blogs are one-sided, and will only argue for or against an issue. This type of writing though, allows the reader to get a further understanding of this side, and to understand their arguments, and of course, they are not restrained to the one blog. We no longer live in a society where we receive all our news form one source, they can read many different blogs, some taking completely different sides, again allowing the reader to comprehend their arguments, and allows them to make an educated decision of their view.
Goldman states that “a difference between jurors and blog readers is that jurors are required to listen to the entire legal proceeding, the entire argument from both sides, and will be exposed to roughly equal amount of arguments from both sides”. This statement is very true about readers. Studies have shown that 44% of readers only view the headline, and don’t bother actually reading the article. NPR in early 2014 published an ‘April Fools’ article, with no content, but just a heading saying, “Why doesn’t America read anymore?” and received hundreds of comments of people fighting the title, without realizing in the body they had no content. However, Goldman’s argument can also be used against the mass media, particularly newspapers, people will skim articles, which is why headlines are so aggressive, to try and attract the readers.
Conventional media will always appear balanced, however that can be credited to good journalism, and not good ethics. Coady makes the point that every side is not equally promoted in argument, because some views are seen as not equally important to the integrity, quality and don’t have the same evidence as others. He uses the example of a Holocaust denier, they are not given equal and balanced time in an argument because not every side is equally worthy of consideration, and it is not as well researched as others.
Another key aspect that must be taken into consideration is the filtering differences between mass media and blogging. Blogging is unfiltered and uncensored, because there is no third-party gatekeeper to monitor the content like the mass media. Richard Posner claims that this is a good thing, because filtering is a form of censorship, whereas Goldman defends filtering with two examples; Scientific Journals and the Common-Law court system. It can be argued that filtering in the media is positive, because it allows us to condense the required information and easily promote the topic through the media, and these gatekeepers are seen as experts in their fields. This system is absent in blogging, and in political journalism, because there is no safeguard for a reliable source. Coady then goes on to argue that we leave political questions to “the wisdom of crowds”, which can be argued why there are so many different sides and stories to political events. However, with this filtering that the media implements, even with good intentions, can unintentionally, or even intentionally, filter out certain crucial points to sway an audience to one side, which is why blogging is very crucial for political truths. Everyone has the right to read, write and critic political truths and questions as not to prevent us from possible truths.
Media ownership in the mass media is one of the biggest issues in democratic practices, and that the absence of large ownerships in blogging is positive for democracy. Mass media in today’s society is owned by a handful of strongly opinionated people, with strong political views. Their political agenda will always prevent journalists from doing their job; there have been cases of reporters being fired for promoting the truth. These journalists report to a higher power, and this hierarchy will prevent the full truth from being reported on some political affairs. “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one” (Abbott Joseph Liebling, 1960). This large scale of ownership is completely absent in blogging. Bloggers own their own website, or maybe even several, but not to such a large extent as the likes of Rupert Murdoch, and it’s because of this, that through blogging, we can read political truths that are not reported on. In 2013 we witnessed this as the mass media promoted The Liberal Party over any other, and completely saturated their headlines with negative comments relating to The Labour Party. The large scale of ownership has corrupted the mass media, and we can no longer believe anything politically related, and this is where blogging will succeed in comparison.
Blogging allows for more sides of a political debate to be promoted. In the mass media, only two sides to an argument are heard, and will give them equal exposure. However, there are rarely only two sides to an argument, and this is where blogging triumphs over the mass media. With blogging, you can write and read about the views of anyone concerning any political issue. While there may not be the same readership as popular media outlets, it’s the principle of their right to freedom of speech, especially with controversial political topics.
I have argued that blogging has a positive impact on democratic practices through the concepts of filtering, media ownership, the difference in ethics, and the difference of roles between journalists and bloggers. David Coady and Richard Posner support my arguments, while the arguments of Alvin Goldman are considered obsolete with the rebuttals provided. As society evolves, so does our concepts of Democracy, and our methods of communication, blogging is emerging as a large source of information for the public, while the mass media is becoming more filtered and corrupt, thus blogging has improved democratic practices by becoming an alternate option for those seeking unbiased and extensive information.
Sources:
Nicolas John Munn, “The New Political Blogosphere”, Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy, 26(1), 2012: 55-70.
Alvin I. Goldman, “The Social Epistemology of Blogging,” in J. van den Hover and J. Weckert (ed), Information Technology and Moral Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp.111-22.
NPR, 2014, ‘Why doesn’t America read anymore?’, NPR, 1st April, Viewed 2nd September, <http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/19/outsell-google-news/>
David Coady, DC 2011, ‘’An Epistemic Defence of the Blogoshpere’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 28, No. 3, pp (277-294)
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