Blogging Logging ... On and Off

I think we all get tired of repeating how much change is coming from connecting, opining, pointing to references and sources, and yelling at ourselves to have a voice.

It stuns us (me, at least) that there is so much information out there that counters or contradicts the official versions of things, and yet the power structures of our societies roll along seemingly unimpeded by networks of people with hyperlinks under their thumbs.  Of course we read about, and make mental notes, of business models disrupted, and changing behaviour and consumption patterns, and wish we understood whether continuous partial attention is good or bad, but hey ... things still roll along more or less the way they have.  The masters still matter, and the muttering classes still chatter.  Cue Andrew Keen, stage left.

That significant change is happening is, in my opinion, not in question .. and that blogging (whether expert, or activist, or serious / scholarly, or pop fluff, or as other purposeful group activity) is an important component if not the primary example is also not in question.

Via Adriana Lukacs' blog Media Influencer ...

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Hugh is taking the heat off his posting Why We’re all Blogging Less?:
Blogging isn’t dead. Far from it. It’s just a subset of something much larger and more important.

Indeed. So 2004 and we are still repeating it.

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What is "something much larger and more important" ? 

I think it is both the real opportunity (and the real danger contained therein) of the connected voices and hyperlinks making democracy more real .. and more messy for the powers that be.  When I say " ... the real danger contained therein ...", I mean that governments and media corporations are learning (pretty quickly) how to use networks, electronics and language to subsume citizen voice.  They are learning quickly in an environment that is currently conducive to coopting and eviscerating democratic principles, rights and practices.

Here's what we're up against ... the emergence of The Rebel Well, hot on the heels of The Rebel Sell.

The following is excerpted from the beginning of today's opinion column in the Guardian by Naomi Klein.  It is useful to read.

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Democracy's new dawn is on CCTV: the security state as infotainment


So keen are America's leaders to hear dissent they're videotaping the dissenters. Welcome to a world of total surveillance

Naomi Klein
Friday August 24, 2007
The Guardian

As protesters gathered recently outside the Security and Prosperity Partnership summit in Montebello, Quebec, to confront George Bush, Felipe Calderón, the Mexican president, and Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, Associated Press reported this surreal detail: "Leaders were not able to see the protesters in person, but they could watch the protesters on TV monitors inside the hotel ... Cameramen hired to ensure that demonstrators would be able to pass along their messages to the three leaders sat idly in a tent full of audio and video equipment ... A sign on the outside of the tent said, 'Our cameras are here today providing your right to be seen and heard. Please let us help you get your message out. Thank You.'"

Yes, it's true: like contestants on a reality TV show, protesters at the SPP meeting were invited to vent into video cameras, their rants to be beamed to "protest-trons" inside the summit enclave. It was security state as infotainment - Big Brother meets, well, Big Brother.

The spokesperson for Prime Minister Harper explained that although protesters were herded into empty fields, the video link meant that their right to political speech was protected. "Under the law, they need to be seen and heard, and they will be."

It is an argument with sweeping implications. If videotaping activists meets the legal requirement that dissenting citizens have the right to be seen and heard, what else might fit the bill? How about all the other security cameras that patrolled the summit - the ones filming demonstrators as they got on and off buses and peacefully walked down the street? What about the mobile phone calls that were intercepted, the meetings that were infiltrated, the emails that were read?

According to the new rules set out in Montebello, all these actions may soon be recast not as infringements on civil liberties but the opposite: proof of our leaders' commitment to direct, unmediated consultation.

[ Snark on the part of Klein, do you think ? ]

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