Christian Kerr on the Australian blogosphere
UPDATE: Lyn Calcutt over on Public Opinion takes up this theme, is much harder on CK than us, but makes some fair points along the way.
UPDATE 2: One of those points being, of course, that it was a blogger who broke the story in the first place.
UPDATE 3: Tree of Knowledge is onto this one, too.
I’ve always enjoyed Christian Kerr’s writing. I miss his contrarian presence at Crikey, but his move to the Australian can only improve the political coverage there.
Today, though, he’s revealed that he’s pretty well “on-message” when it comes to the Oz’s attitude to Ozblogistan. The evidence turns up in a piece this morning on the “blogs of war” crisis now enveloping the Victorian Liberals. As a whole, his article is pretty scathing about the Libs’ party organisation, not just in Victoria, but nationally.
At the end of the Howard era, he opines, the Libs’ are too reliant on immature “child soldiers” like the sacked staffers in Victoria - inexperienced, accustomed to cruisey Party or Parliamentary-staffer jobs, and without the experience that those “Labor union hacks” they revile have of interacting with ordinary people.
The killer comes, though, when he criticises their decision to go public with their criticisms on a blog:
They think that online smears are clever. Real political professionals know that the Australian blog world is insular, often ignorant and has virtually no influence on mainstream debate.
Ouch! Mind you, I’ve heard very similar opinions from other seasoned political pros. The funny thing is that the conferences I’ve attended lately - organised for academics and journos - have been consumed by the idea that bloggers present a direct threat to the ongoing viability of newspapers and other MSM outlets.
So where does the truth lie? Any thoughts?
I don’t know if you remember Christian’s comments from the session at Writers Week last year, Jason. I had lunch with him afterwards and it’s fair to say that’s always been his view - so it’s not particular to his new gig at the Australian. Obviously also he sees himself as a “political professional”.
Mark - I had a drink with Christian and Graham at the same time, and I was aware then that he was yet to be convinced. I reckon this scepticism takes on a different cast in the context of the Oz though. Not sure what you think…
It’s not that I think that scepticism is entirely misplaced, either (though his claim here is pretty sweeping). What’s interesting is that, as you say, he’s a former political operative. Often it’s people with that history who seem to have the deepest reservations about the blogosphere’s influence.
On the other hand, journos and academics at recent events I’ve attended assume that really wide-ranging and crucial changes are on the way, or already at hand. Whether they’re evangelistic or apocalyptic in their reception of it, there is a shared sense that online open publishing platforms (mostly blogs) are part of a massive transformation in the landscape of media and politics. “Blogs are the future” is the basic message I took away from a couple of recent conferences.
So what’s the truth of the matter? Well, it’s obviously it calls for research
It’s curious though that different professional groups seem to produce different climates of opinion.
Anyway, there are some elements of the discussion I was hoping to start…
I agree with Mark. Kerr’s comments both at the BWF, and consistently through his writing at Crikey, suggested he has consistently thought the local blog scene was over-rated.
By “Australian blog world”, Kerr means the (maybe fifty or so?) bloggers who write regularly on local political matters and who endlessly cross-reference each other’s work.
Kerr is not attacking blogs as a communication platform but harking to the fact that the political bloggers’ influence is yet to be felt fully either in the political landscape or in other (professional) parts of the media outside the blogosphere.
Derek
Derek - thanks. I don’t disagree about the scope and target of Kerr’s reservations - I think you’re right about that. But as indicated in my post and subsequent comments, I’m still wondering why it is that many journos and academics seem convinced that everything is about to change.
It could be that their indices of change are different. Journos see the traditional economic model for news media degrading, and newsrooms shrinking, just as a lot of people come along offering free political content. But current and former political operatives see a big wide electorate out there where only a small percentage of people are actually going online for hardcore political content, let alone engaging in discussion on independent blogs.
Anyway, the question remains: how to account for these radically different perspectives on the importance of the blogosphere?
Oh, and again, does it make a difference that Kerr’s platform for these views is now the Australian?
What these journalists and academics are seeing is the cusp of a digital revolution that will sooner or later, destroy the current business models of delivering mass media.
That doesn’t yet translate into influence. Only the early adopters are out there now tuning in to bloggers so the numbers are small. But as change agents, their influence will grow. As will the technologies to deliver content. The future may not belong to “blogs” but to whatever medium that will best empower new voices to get fresh messages across.
Employees of the mass media are obviously at the pointy end of this change and therefore most likely to resist it. Kerr is on the inside looking out, but too smart a cookie I believe, to continually resist change for change sake.
Oh and no the only difference about his message now is that he is presumably on more money than he earned at Crikey. And getting more eyeballs to read him.
Derek - On the Australian, the number of eyeballs is precisely the point, or part of it. It’s also important because he could be seen as supporting a party line at that newspaper, even if it coincides with the views he’s always held.
On the money - I reckon he deserves it.
The rest of what you say I’d go with completely, wiht one caveat.
I think what Kerr’s missed, ironically, is that the disruptiveness of blogs as a technology is a kind of influence, and that’s what’s gotten the Libs into trouble.
Ordinarily those staffers would have reserved their criticisms of Baillieu for bar-room conversations. Now, because of the lure of apparent anonymity, they’ve published their sledges to the world.
If the Libs had more corporate understanding the potential consequences of online indiscretions, these guys might have been more careful. But the libs have really refused to engage with new technologies on an organisational level, and htat’s part of the reason why they’ve been caught out.
Kerr should be recommending that all staffers make an effort to understand the potential of blogs - stat.
Imho, Crikey has really suffered since Christian left.
But that’s by the by.
I think the debate about influence is wrongly framed. With reference to Axel’s reservations about the reach of the blogospher beyond “political junkies”, it shouldn’t be forgotten that The Australian also targets its political comment to exactly the same audience. It isn’t exactly a high volume read anyway, and a lot of people who do buy it probably ignore the politics and read the sport and/or biz news. The contest, I think, is for the same “opinion makers”. There’s a much bigger conundrum about the influence such discourse has on perceptions among a broader public of politics. There’s no doubt that it does have some, but in my view the debate hasn’t really moved on from certain iterations of media effects theory. That whole question really does cry out for more research!
Mark - yes, precisely: what is “influence” anyway?
I’ve got a piece in NM today suggesting that anxieties about the “influence” of bloggers is more clearly felt in “quality media” circles because they are in the same niche as political bloggers. That’s not the first time I’ve made this argument. But there’s no evidence that I’m aware of that this is a zero-sum game in terms of audience share - it’s just as likely that this particular audience is omnivorous and will consume almost as much political content as you put in front of them.
I think that some of the anxiety and conflict in this area is about about rises and falls in social and cultural capital - yet another way of understanding “influence” - which is why sometimes it gets rather more intense than we might expect.
I firmly believe that one key to getting all this is understanding how intra-elite debates operate, and then how they spill out into broader conversations. But I think that referring to “opinion-makers” might be shifting the question. Among the things that need to be examined is how political opinion is articulated and disseminated, and how and why that’s changing, if at all. If political bloggers only have a PJ audience, this might still be vitally important, because they’re reframing and expanding elite conversations. To what extent? In what directions? Clearly, opinion leadership isn’t a mysterious magnetic force - it’s material, institutional and in enough cases it’s legible.
Obviously, communications studies and political science have more sophisticated models of this kind of “influence” than dusty old “hypodermic” ones. The idea is to build on these, and innovate further - I think the network analyses of the blogosphere Axel has been working on are a good example here.
How bloggers might trip further switches for a broader “influence” is an open question, but I think election 07 developments like Dennis Atkins rehearsing bloggers’ arguments in his C-M columns are very interesting. I’ve been trying to do interviews and more qualitative work to find out more about these processes - but here again, the question of influence gets more complex the longer you stare at it.
I couldn’t possibly guess how many people toss away the front section of the Oz! Also, I’m not sure who you’re suggesting is operating within a “media effects” model - most of the scholarship I’ve been frustrated by in recent weeks has been more like unreconstructed McLuhanism.
Anyhow, you’re right - there’s “influence”, “influence” and then there’s “influence”. I think folks like CK are thinking for the moment about the kind of influence that changes election results, or easily alters the course of politcal debate. I’m not sure bloggers have that kind of pull yet, but is this the only index of influence?
PS - also “comments”, “community” - there’s never enough about these regular, essential parts of blogging, and how we might refract our understandings of “influence” through the realisation that most good blogs are a village.
I’m thinking more of research in political sociology, Jason. The classic Lazarfeld study and the idea that there’s one more level of mediation between the production of news and opinion and the citizenry - “opinion leaders” understood as people who other people take cues from in forming political views. As I understand it, there hasn’t been much advance on this - which I think is a pity.
It’s also a moot question, I think, how much influence the media have on “election results”. Nowhere near as much as they think, in my view. I’d have to sit down with the AES properly, but my recollection and my experience of polling is that advertising and free media - ie pollies’ direct messaging - is much more important. So I think the question needs reframing! We shouldn’t be asking “are bloggers supplanting the media”? but rather “how are political opinions formed and changed so as to change or reinforce votes?”…
Mark - I’m aware of various “two-step” models of opinion-formation, including the one you refer to, and I agree that they’re inadequate as they stand, or at least they haven’t yet been applied in nuanced way to this stuff.
Also - I agree that “election results” are just one place to look for influence, as I wrote earlier - that’s why I think how opinions affect electoral behaviour (”votes”) might be too limiting also. I still think elections are important (duh), but the interesting thing about studying online stuff is that you can get some idea of how influence plays out in different temporalities - around the discussion of particular, intense but short-term issues, for example.
Sorry - perhaps I wasn’t clear enough in the last comment in saying that the question of one “supplanting” the other is misleading - I think we may be agreed there, too. There’s too much research and opinion premised on the “revolutionary impact of bla”. It’s not necessarily a zero-sum game, particularly with niche audiences.
Advertising might be a whole different question - to get apples and apples you may need to look at comparing online political communication strategies from candidates. The latest stuff I’ve read suggests that these may be changing the “supply-chain” of small donations and volunteer labour far more than they are voting intention.
Jason, I agree that we’re agreeing!
I thought I was disagreeing with Christian on his measure of influence!
Phew. So we’re agreed we’re disagreeing? I’ve had a couple of beers.
No we’re agreed that we’re agreeing!
I’m sober!
Yeah I know. Just joshin.