Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Excellent objections!

Rather than try to answer them in this tiny box, and impose on your hospitality any further here, I'll respond over at my place. Probably won't get to it till later on tonight, but I'm looking forward to it.

Sorry to jump in again in this way, and I am goin to be damned accademic too, but my view is that 'spoken language' is a medium as much as 'dreaming' and 'the web',

in the sense that a medium is what acts in the middle between the appearence of an experience and the memory of it.
I agree though that authority in the web comes from the ability to mediate information flows, that is the usual path for an accepted truth.

Dave and David,

I think you are both a bit right...the Internet is obviously a medium for transferring information...and it also hosts "places" with web "addresses"...like rl places these places are persistent, you can revisit them...what you see there is relatively consistent but can change dramatically too...

--Dylan

Dave R.

re: your objections to objections, to wit "What is not different, and what is, in my opinion, important, is that authorities always govern the way a medium is exploited.

I wonder .. I am on uncertain ground here, but I found myself wondering deeply about this, given that open source may be a relatively new form of *exploitation of a medium*, if you will ... that would not have bbeen possible pre-Net.

bnut i'm clearly strepping quickly into being out of my depth by this wondering .. must go away and mutter to myself and think some more ... mrblmumbllphfft pop whiz bang .. overload

This is a difficult discussion, partly because it's got a bit combative in parts, but mainly because there are three or four different sets of propositions being discussed.

Here's my take on it. One question is: "does the Web represent unmediated communication?" Well, no, obviously not. Next question.

Another is: "is the Web a means for isolated individuals to communicate with one another, or is it a place where groups form and group-things happen?" This, to me, is the big one: 'medium' (isolated individuals) vs 'world' (group-things). This, if you come down on the side of the group-things, is also why it makes sense to criticise people who use blogs as one-way pulpits, to argue that the RIAA has got the Web wrong, and so on.

Another question is: are we selling when we blog or talk about blogging, and if so what? Oddly, this falls into place if you're down with the group-thing, er, thing: what we're doing is adding to a collective work, throwing another ingredient in the pot. Selling, for me, means there's some benefit to me over and above the pleasure of successful communication. (See Suw Charman's recent discussion of BzzAgent for a fascinating borderline case.)

Another question has something to do with gatekeepers and A-list bloggers, but that topic bores me rigid so I wasn't really paying attention. I will just ask, what gates are these A-list types keeping? If they're 'mediating', what are they in between us and? How are they stopping z-list bloggers - even nobodies like me - doing the big blog group-thing, in our own respective circles (or spheres)? I don't see it.

But world-not-medium, group-not-individual[s], strikes me as a really productive insight. I've blogged further on this here.

"what gates are these A-list types keeping?"

Attention.

"If they're 'mediating', what are they in between us and?"

Audience.

"How are they stopping z-list bloggers - even nobodies like me - doing the big blog group-thing, in our own respective circles (or spheres)?"

And how are the New York Times and the Washington Post stopping a bunch of people ranting on a streetcorner from doing the Big Media thing?

"I don't see it."

Hope this helps.

Look, why is it a hard concept that some people get heard by 10,000 or 100,000 readers or more, and others don't get heard by anyone, and this is a profound structural matter? There's so much talking around this very simple point. Yes, of course, some people are writing diaries and chat, and are content at that. Got it, heard it. But there's also many people who aren't happy little socializers, and those concerns are valid too.

To address the "trying to sell it" point, think of the difference between gurus and spirituality. Nobody "owns" spirtuality, but there sure are many sellers of it, some considerably less benign than others.

Several of the A-listers are marketing gurus of one sort of another. They sell their supposed expertise like a guru sells his or her supposed enlightenment. Depending on the specifics, this can be a relatively honest transaction ... or not.

"I am on uncertain ground here, but I found myself wondering deeply about this, given that open source may be a relatively new form of *exploitation of a medium*, if you will ... that would not have bbeen possible pre-Net"

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're wondering about, but consider this:

Pre-net: Computers and laser printers and Kinkos gave anyone who really wanted one a printing press. Pre-computers and laser printers, folks who really wanted one had to work a lot harder using a typewriter and mimeograph stencils, or xerographic copiers, but it could be, and was, done. I remember seeing badly printed but well written fanfic (fan fiction) in the old Economy Bookstore in Syracuse, NY in the 70s and I'm sure it was there long before that.

Technology changes how we do things, not what we do. When things get easier (flatter) more people do them. Some things about that are good. Some things about that are maybe not so good.

It seems like whenever more people are doing something, there are more people trying to exercise authority over it.

You could look at radio and the FCC. The average person, if they had the technical interest, could obtain an amateur radio license. The the authorities made sure they were "amateurs" and they couldn't compete with the pros. Some of this was for technical reasons. Some of it was to protect the authority of the economic interests at the top of the hierarchy.

Does that help?

Seth:
"what gates are these A-list types keeping?"
Attention.
"If they're 'mediating', what are they in between us and?"
Audience.
"How are they stopping z-list bloggers - even nobodies like me - doing the big blog group-thing, in our own respective circles (or spheres)?"
And how are the New York Times and the Washington Post stopping a bunch of people ranting on a streetcorner from doing the Big Media thing?
[...]
Look, why is it a hard concept that some people get heard by 10,000 or 100,000 readers or more, and others don't get heard by anyone, and this is a profound structural matter?

Two dissenting points. Firstly, readership for the sake of readership is meaningless. In my spare time I write a blog about British politics; it gets about 40 hits a day. 40's fine. 100 would be better; 200 would be better still. But I know it's never going to get the audience of the Daily Kos, and I wouldn't really want it to. I feel like I'm reaching enough people to be going on with - especially as the blog's being read by a lot of other bloggers.

Secondly, the New York Times analogy is profoundly misleading. Blogging - with comments enabled as nature intended - breaks down precisely that division between the mass-broadcast medium and the isolated ranter. I can't write to the NYT disputing the leader column at equal length and conclude with a link to my own newspaper, available at every newsstand that sells the NYT.

But yes, you have got a point; I agreed with Shelley on Burningbird when she said that the kind of rankings publicised by Sifry and NZ Bear are a bad thing, because they will tend to funnel casual visitors away from 99% of the blogosphere. I guess I'm saying that I haven't hit the wall (or the ceiling?) yet - and that there is plenty of room for communities and sub-communities in the great low-linked mass of the blogosphere, in a way that there isn't in the rain shadow of the major print media. I mean, I'd rather read this blog, Burningbird, P.S. and a couple of others than anything by Clay or Joi or [your tech guru here]; I expect that people who feel similarly will also like my blog, & that by posting comments that give off the right vibe I can attract some of those people to it. I know there are lots of people who would rather read Clay and Joi and co, and those people will probably steer clear of my blog. In itself, that's fine by me. As systems go, it's not entirely broken.

Dave R.

It does help .. thank you.

When I said *uncertain ground*, I meant that I didn't understand deeply enough the fundamental dynamics in the open source world to be really clear about whether or not the medium perhaps was exploited differently. Wikipedia might be a good example (tho' perhaps it's not true *open source* use of the Web) ... I'm not sure that you'll find anyone on there vying to be a more authoritative or more attention-gathering Wikipediator than other people.

Clearly though it requires some authoritative process - I found an entry yesterday (Web 2.0) where there was nifty banner right at the top of the entry stating "The neutrality of this item is under dispute" - and I thought that this was wonderful mediation. I couldn't quickly and easily see who was mediating, or who was disputing what, but probably only because I didn't look hard enough.

Thanks Jon. I should probably reiterate again that authority is not bad per se, and that indeed, we cannot exist without some type of hierarchy and authority. But I think we need to understand who these authorities are to whom we would choose to accede, and to require from them some measure of responsibility and accountability. And also understand how all this (authority, rank and hierarchy) influences and affects our own choices and behaviors.

"readership for the sake of readership is meaningless."

Readership is a simplification for influence. In these discussions, one often uses approximations and proxies, in order to outline the basic issues. Of course the full version is more complex, but that shouldn't be used to obscure the basic point.

The map is not the territory - yet it *can* tell you if you're close, in the general area, or way off.

I disagree that the mass/Big Head division is broken-down much. Don't get me wrong, it's *nice* to have discussion forums such as this one. But there aren't nearly as novel as portrayed. They also exist at the sufferance of the site runner, and are very fragile and easily turned into flaming-pits. At certain levels, it's almost a joke. An A-lister can lie through their teeth from their platform on-high, and the number of people who will even *see* a correction in the comments is comparatively trivial.

"I can't write to the NYT disputing the leader column at equal length and conclude with a link to my own newspaper, available at every newsstand that sells the NYT."

Ah, but you can - you can include an *address* in this wonderful country-wide web called the "US Postal System". And every person who purchases the New York Times could in theory purchase your own newspaper. Aren't you absolutely thrilled? Isn't the postal system the Death Of Legacy Media, because now people can set up their own media companies? We've internalized this practical difference in the case of earlier media, so it's sarcastic to even point it out. But the level of thought about authorities/gatekeepers/mediation/etc., is such that these very elemental aspects need to be gone over, over and over (no offense intended, it's just frustrating).

Of course there's room at the bottom - just like there's plenty of people happy running small businesses and not everyone wants to be a Fortune 500 company CEO. But the *system*, the organizational structures, are shot through with power concentrations, gatekeepers, hierarchies, etc. Which have attendant cronyism, bias, exclusionary functions, and so on.

It's not a matter of being "broken", but more "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

Regardless of authority, veracity, credibility, responsibility and such ... what seems clear to me is that a wide (and sometimes deep) range of information is now able to be published to the Web where potentially millions of people can see it, read it if they like and follow links to other (potentially illuminating or useful) information.

And if knowledge truly is power, then it's at least reasonable to assume that putting information into the hands of many more people can support the process of vetting that information and (perhaps) turning it into knowledge that can be shared to create or have impact upon power structures which rely on their use and manipulation of information to maintain power and control.

Seth's points are good. And it continues to interest me that we humans who have grown up in structures and social systems where the information we need to function in democratic ways in a democratic society comes mainly from the established authorities, give those authorities so very much unquestioning trust.

We are all still newbies when it comes to understanding how the accumulating weight of information that in the past may have been hidden, spun with skill, or swept aside - and is now increasingly posted to the Web - may help create knowledge where previously there was rumour or conjecture that would not have been able to come to light without, say, a Deep Throat.

As billmon of the Whiskey Bar blog wrote recently in a post titled "Sore Throat", liberals have been moaning about "where is our Deep Throat when we need him". He points out here have been many throaty singers chanting their songs during the past couple of years ... Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, Scott Ritter, Hans Blix, Sy Hersh, Sibel Edmunds, General Taguba and a range of others ... not to mention the thousands (or tens of thousands) of bloggers who have been finding, linking and archiving information that previously only newspapers MIGHT have brought to light and circulated (or, of course, that you might have shared with a couple of friends via a fax machine or a letter or two posted to them via the US Mail). All that is now on the Web, at the end of one or another hyperlink and able to be made active depending upon how we use our mice, brains and consciences.

Of course, what we individually and collectively do with all this information-that-might-become-knowledge is up to us. It seems to me that interesting and powerful new variants on how to use and spin information have appeared quite quickly.

Back when it was still only *the old boss* there was much more dependence upon what kind of information was made available (or not) with respect to the thinking, planning and actions of the established authorities .. hence deep throats and freedom of information legislation.

But like I said, we're all still newbies .. sure there's lots of noise, wankery and wonkery ... but it seems clear to me that the genie has jumped the shark just after she got out of the bottle (??? ;-). I think we are still looking with skeptical interest at the threshold of a new environment in which we each have a (much) greater responsibbility to filter all this available information carefully AND use it to hold the accepted, established authorities to the accountability they assume soley by virtue of being the established, accepted authorities. Or use it to subvert that authority and point out that the subversion is necessary because they are specifically not living up to their accountability.

We may not know how to do this very well .. or we may be anxious about what will happen if we do indeed act upon this response-ability.

How that applies to A-listers (if there is indeed such a thing any longer, or if it is actually still highly relevant... yeah, yeah, I know much of the discussion up and down the various sides of this issue) ... I really don't know. I think everyone has a responsibility to try to tell the *truth*, but then of course I am massively naive and idealistic .. and I know that ;-)

Seth:
"I can't write to the NYT disputing the leader column at equal length and conclude with a link to my own newspaper, available at every newsstand that sells the NYT."

Ah, but you can - you can include an *address* in this wonderful country-wide web called the "US Postal System". And every person who purchases the New York Times could in theory purchase your own newspaper.

Your argument deserves a much longer reply, which with any luck I'll give it on my blog. For now I'll just suggest that you've stretched your own analogy until it broke. For a writer, the opportunity cost of starting your own dead-tree zine is much greater than that of starting a blog; for readers, the opportunity cost of sending off for a copy of some unknown zine is much greater than that of typing in a URL.

But it's a difference of kind rather than degree. Newspapers are a broadcast medium of their nature; blogs aren't.

But, Phil, It *could* happen. It's *possible*.

Once you recognize the idea of "opportunity cost", then it should be recognized that production is not the ONLY cost which matters - e.g. marketing does too. The key fallacy of blog triumphialism is arguing in essence that the cost of production is the only cost which matters. The key mistake is to ignore that the falling cost of production is pretty much directly linked to a rising cost of promotion.

Writing is a broadcast medium of it's nature - one writes, many reads. This is masked by the circumstances that nobody wants to read what most people write. But A-lister's are broadcasters - to a good approximation, you read them, they don't read you.

A-listers are broadcasters - to a good approximation, you read them, they don't read you.

I agree with this - "A-listers" don't use the blog in the way that most of us do. Which is why I usually avoid reading them (or any blog with comments disabled, or any blog with 50+ comments per post).

Also, Seth and I have discussed this quite a bit, and if you read Dave Rogers's original post, you may have seen the links to The New Gatekeepers series, which I completed last month.

I'm a bit more optomistic than Seth: I do believe that there are truly flat technologies which can and are being developed. But the blogosphere as we know it today is not entirely flat, and I believe, following the approach used by Lessig in Code, that it's the architecture which drives the power relationship. It's flatter than television/radio/print, but not quite as flat as USENET-- which while also rewarding attention to the super-posters, it's too flat to be of use to anyone who wanted to invest any time into it. But flat does have a future.

Certainly, I sympathize with the sentiment of Dave Rogers's original post, but as I've covered that ground before I wasn't losing my lunch over who Chris Lydon had on for guests on his return to broadcast radio. It's for a general audience, and I don't begrudge Lydon in the slightest. That's the nature of the interview format. And if you've every tried challenging Winer in a room-- when you at least can respond back by grace of the group's sympathy-- try doing so on the radio, when you can't. Though traditionally Lydon has been terrific about giving callers a bit of breathing room.

When I saw our host on C-SPAN for the last November, I tossed him a moderately challenging question, and one that I knew he could answer, which he did, gracefully. I'd expect more critical exchanges here, because it's a more technical audience here who participates.