TedPage: Blogging as the new media

I've become increasingly interested in the idea of blogging being the new media. The fact that there are a few corporations that are basically controlling all the information that we get is very scary. Things like Disney blocking Michael Moore's new film for tax reasons (which may or may not be happening, but it illustrates what could happen). News corporations have other interests besides reporting the news, they have other markets that they are invested in, and shareholders to report to. Not their fault, but it is just a reality of media consolidation.

But, that means that there needs to be a way to get less of the 'party line'. It seems that blogs may fill that gap, they are published by individuals, usually about their daily lives. While, they are opinionated and usually poorly researched, they do have a certain 'reality' associated with them -- atleast to the author.

But, as the researchers in DARPA's Policy Analysis Market expressed, in many ways the actions of the group can be good predictors of what is happening. So, while people may be discussing their own mundane lives, the distilation of everyone doing that creates an intelligent assesment of current events.

This also relates to the reason that the FBI doesn't care about e-mail encryption. They care more about the amount of e-mail sent, and to who. So if all of the people in a group start sending e-mail to each other, then that group is probably planning and/or acting on an event. In the same manner, if everyone is blogging about the US attack on Iraq, then it must be important.

All in all, I can't find a good way to find text, but I think it is very possible to see what is important and what is 'the buzz' of the Internet. I don't think that blogs are going to replace the role of reporters, but it would be nice to remove the corporate influence of media corporations.