| If you read more than just the Vermont blogs, you've undoubtedly heard about Bill O'Reilly's jihad against DailyKos, attempting to label it a "hate site." If you missed it, there isn't much to the narrative; O'Reilly thinks he can bully Kos out of existence by using troll rated comments to rationalize the harassment of a "Yearly Kos" convention sponsor (Jet Blue) out of the program. In that he has been partially successful, but of course this has done nothing but fire up the netroots crowd who are not only (of course) finding more objectionable user comments on O'Reilly's own site (as well as targeting his sponsors), but have also begun to get organized and coalesce into a netroots driven, rapid response, anti-Fox truth squad. O'Reilly's return volley has been simply to become obsessive in his attacks on dKos by trying to brings his TV guests into the fight, demanding they join him in comparing bloggers like us to nazis, the Klan, Mussolini, Al Capone, etc. But thereisnospoon is now reporting that the battle has been joined by Sean Hannity (Hannity, for those who don't listen to talk radio or watch Fox, is the slightly dumber version of Rush Limbaugh who doesn't talk about himself as incessantly). Hannity is now attacking The Huffington Post on air, again based on comments users have posted on her site (and again, there are even nastier comments on Hannity's own site). This begs the question as to whether or not we're seeing the beginnings of an all-out proxy war between the two major political parties being waged by their media manifestations. |
If we are, you couldn't pick better avatars. The blogs are a decentralized phenomenon frequented by an astonishing number of people across the country that mushroom independently, but function in loose, almost communitarian concert. There is no head to cut off that would cause the body to fail. Fox, on the other hand, is not just a corporate entity, but an old-school corporate behemoth still run as an institutional totalitarianism by the legendary media mogul, Rupert Murdoch. In the short term, you have to give the advantage to Fox in terms of sheer media power, but in the long run it's hard to imagine any force outside of a complete governmental crackdown that could ever do more than annoy the blogosphere. Fox, on the other hand, is comparatively vulnerable - especially when you consider that they are a media force in ratings decline, while the blogosphere continues to grow. Fox's widening of the war is clearly an act of unmitigated hubris that - in an example of an exceptionally unbusiness-savvy strategic decision - places only itself at risk. Still, it's interesting to wax futuristic when you look at this. Could we be looking ahead into the partisan wars of the future, here? As the major parties come to have more in common with media organizations, could this be a glimpse into the next evolution of the parties themselves, rather than simply their proxies? It would be an interesting sort of instiutional sci-fi indeed to glance decades ahead to see the Democratic party essentially merging with the netroots, and the GOP becoming a right-wing traditional media machine like Fox (even more interesting when you consider that the head of Fox is not an American citizen)? Would such an evolution lock in the current power structure, or break it open? Would the lines between a netroots-Democratic Party and the greater inhabitants of the American left blur enough to recreate the party as home for disenfranchised lefties (and even Greens)? Yeah, yeah. All sci-fi, I know, but fun to ponder all the same. I sense a novel here (Philip, let's talk...) |
250-1
55-1
