Yeah, yeah, I know, a little over the top with the blog posting this morning, feeling a little manic, sorry about that.

I think that most people who try to talk about it have a tendency to either or simultaneously over and understate, but above all misstate, the effect of all the new communications modalities that are popping up. The treatment of blogs is instructive in this regard. Political blogs are generally taken as the paradigm case despite being exemplary only in their collecting an intensified version of everything that's worst about blogs in general (can basically be summarized as 'echo chamber of stupidity'), and there is an extreme polarization of response to this (e.g. 'Radically changing the face of American politics', 'An echo chamber of stupidity'). What appears to be actually happening with them is that despite being an echo chamber of stupidity they have rapidly become a driving force of the news cycle, I mean, Jesus, this blog has been the source for at least one news story I'm aware of, but political blogs aren't really all that interesting, the only reason they have such an effect is that the echo chamber of stupidity is much wider in extent, encompassing the news media and American politics generally. The thing I think is most interesting about the medium is the one to a relatively small number of others broadcast nature of almost all blogs which I think fosters some very new ways of relating. Again, the mainstream focus has been on the very popular blog, its potential as source of revenue, etc., but these are barely interesting at all, typical broadcast media with a little bit of interactivity tacked on. Anyway, I do think some odd new things are afoot, but no one seems to really notice.