Howard Dean's Campaign
In reading an article in Wired magazine I gained a new admiration for Howard Dean.
The article describes how Dean used bloggers and other online communities to raise funds and campaign for votes.
Is his strategy democratic? No.
Will it be democratic in 8-10 years? Yes.
Right now, bloggers make up a small percentage of the population. The section that they do represent has things in common with one another. If a candidate assumed the concerns of bloggers are the concerns of the nation, he or she would be totally neglecting entire portions of the population.
How many farmers blog? How many inner city minimum wage industrial workers are in the blogosphere? What percentage of bloggers are over 60 years old?
The blogosphere probably has a very different view of social security, welfare and other government programs than the country as a whole does. The luxury of computers, the Internet and time to blog is one that not everyone in this country has.
More later.
The article describes how Dean used bloggers and other online communities to raise funds and campaign for votes.
Is his strategy democratic? No.
Will it be democratic in 8-10 years? Yes.
Right now, bloggers make up a small percentage of the population. The section that they do represent has things in common with one another. If a candidate assumed the concerns of bloggers are the concerns of the nation, he or she would be totally neglecting entire portions of the population.
How many farmers blog? How many inner city minimum wage industrial workers are in the blogosphere? What percentage of bloggers are over 60 years old?
The blogosphere probably has a very different view of social security, welfare and other government programs than the country as a whole does. The luxury of computers, the Internet and time to blog is one that not everyone in this country has.
More later.
posted by Andy at 11/07/2005 12:27:00 PM
2 Comments:
The difference is that the possibility exists for ALL people to have access to the blogs, where as most are less inclined to use the manual system. HowHard Dean is not the one to thank for blogs by the way.
a comment from durham. hmm.... you didn't credit dean for blogs, so i don't get his comment.
anyway,
i've made this point on someone else's blog, but i have to make it again here: dean didn't use the net and blogs and the rest to the exclusion of other media, other means. he campaigned long and hard the conventional ways. so we're not saying either/or here. the choice is decentralized or hierarchical, not web or not web.
another important clarification, more than half of america plugged into the internet in 2001. so it isn't a minority by any definition. your point still is valid: let's keep in mind the digital divide. BUT , we can't use the word minority in referencing those still not wired.
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