I thought this piece about journalism and PR on Neville Hobson’s blog (which in turn refers back to a……

In an earlier post, I said this:Milliband’s blogging doesn’t prove a thing, except that he’s willing to expose himself slightly. If my memory serves me correctly, he’s filtering comments so he’s still in control of both what he chooses to…

I don’t know if you’ve read the Economist’s new media survey which appeared this week. I’m going to quote some views from that which I think illustrate those deep waters you speak of.

The pessimistic view, by Paul Saffo, a futurologist:

Each of us can create our own personal-media walled garden that surrounds us with comforting information and utterly shuts out anything that conflicts with our world view. This is social dynamite and could lead to the erosion of the intellectual commons holding society together. We risk huddling into tribes defined by shared prejudices.

It’s a very good point. Perhaps one of journalism’s value roles is to point out such things.

Then the optimistic view by Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life project:

People will become not less but more aware of differing arguments as they become heavier internet users.

That view makes total sense to me. Further optimisim from Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail:

Opinion is a marketplace and marketplaces work when you have liquidity.

The Economist writer adds to that: Liquidity is exactly what participatory media provide.

And to your point about the Danish academic: the fact is that technology is becoming simpler and the barriers to entry are becoming lower.

People will figure this out.

I suggested deep waters because there is an inherent tension between the democratic ideal of encouraging all voices to be heard and allowing a consensus to emerge and the possibility that a consensus so achieved will be plain wrong. The rather tedious debates around A-listers etc are very easily fitted into a critique based in concepts of hegemony and elites.

I had been thinking about this after hearing a paper at Stuttgart by a Danish academic who filmed newcomers struggling to come to terms with blogs and arguing that they could not be ‘democratic’ until the technology was simpler. At the time I strongly disagreed, suggesting that one of the great virtues of easy to use templates like Typepad was that they lowered the entry barriers. I have since rather softened my line…

My reply was that those little curbs (kerbs?) are often the most troublesome as you don’t see them and so it’s easy to trip up on them.

Still, I don’t see any deep waters here.

When I wrote the post, I was specifically thinking of communication in politics, as the focus of John Lloyd’s FT piece was politics. Yet all of this applies to every aspect of communication between people.

By the way, I’m assuming your use of the word ‘comrade’ is meant in its traditional friendly sense, rather than the usurped Soviet sense.