ADIOS, MR. SANDEFUR
Timothy Sandefur is closing up shop. This is a shame. I hope that he'll leave up his pages so that they can serve as reference points on the topics he wrote about so passionately .
While I've been researching the talk that I am giving in September on the influence of blogs in the 2004 presidential election, I've been thinking about how the online world has changed over the past few years. As far as I can see it, if you class blogs by function, there are basically four types: (1) coordinating blogs, used as points of contact for individuals who are organizing around a common goal, (2) narrative-influencing or frame-setting blogs, used as part of a strategy for shaping perceptions of political events, (3) fundraising blogs (obvious), and (4) expressive blogs, or spaces where individuals attempt to engage in non-instrumental communication, often, but not always, in the context of their professional competencies. It's hard to be a heavy-hitter in the blog world and keep a focus on the type (4) function. (As should go without saying, perched as I am in my tiny corner of the online world, I offer this as an observation of others, not as an experience.) My impression is that good (4)s are becoming hard to find, as some of the optimism surrounding the medium has waned. (If I'm a little slow to catch on, so be it.) This trend - if it is a trend - may indicate something Habermasian about the fragility of communication in modern society.
Sandefur has been one of my favorites from type (4). I disagreed with him on many occasions. Given the number of times he took me to school on such topics as the definition of property and the meaning of Lochner, clearly I profited more from our interactions than he did. Thanks, Timothy.
4 Comments:
Matt,
It would be interesting to see you classify some existing blogs within this typology.
How would you, for example, classify the top 50 of the TTLB?
I am especially curious, as it seems like of those are #4 type blogs, yet you state that it is hard to be a "heavy-hitter" as that type.
However, it may be that I not sure of the distinction between #2 and #4.
Make that "Brett"
I have no idea why I typed "Matt"
I guess disagree on what most of those folks are doing. They're either 1 or 2, mostly 2, in my typology. Powerline, Atrios, LGF are all aiming primarily at framing; this is probably true of Instapundit as well, and it's Michelle Malkin's job. Same as Josh Marshall. Some, like Kos, are doing that as well as trying to coordinate political action. But I'd have to give some thought as to who is a #4 in the top 50. Probably James Joyner is,.
There are also blogs that seem to develop a sense of community, partly based on shared politics, or build on one that was already there. The "Making Light" blog by the Nielsen Haydens (sci-fi, liberal/libertarian connections, Dean) is an example. Maybe they mix functions (2) and (4); I'd need a bunch of examples for each of your categories to decide whether "Making Light" needs a new category of its own or not. I drop by there a lot, even if I'm a bit on the outside of the group looking in.
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