One of the things I do for a living is research young people and how they behave politically. The other night on the Colbert Report I got an idea for a research topic. Do young people thing that blogging = political behavior/activism? Does blogging = political activism? Have we channeled all possibilities for mass movements into elite blogging resources thus losing any chance for a new revolution?
I personally do not believe blogging is political activism and that it fails on a number of criteria to possibly be activism. But believing ain't science, so the political scientist in me is thinking, this is the next fun thing to think about.
I personally do not believe blogging is political activism and that it fails on a number of criteria to possibly be activism. But believing ain't science, so the political scientist in me is thinking, this is the next fun thing to think about.
4 comments:
Very cool!
You should email Duncan Black (Atrios) and see what he thinks about this. I say this simply because one of the things he seems to always harp on is that complaining on the internets doesn't equal action.
Man, that Colbert is one smart cookie. I'm thinking blogging is not political activism because 99.99% (not a scientific number) of blogs don't get read by a whole lot of people, so no one's getting activated. I can get just as much done by complaining to my ten closest friends as I do when I complain on my blog.
But go do your science - I'll be waiting to hear if I'm right. Be sure to put it on your blog!
I had a student in class the other night who said, "Prof Murray, isn't basically political science basically just proving what is common sense and what everyone already knows? I mean, what's interesting here?" To which, I laughed and laughed. But of course, isn't all science that. I mean all of physics is proving common sense, right?
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