Echo Chambers By: Mark W Adams

So I'm thinking about the Press, appropriately as I read Professor Jay Rosen's PressThink: Audience Atomization Overcome: Why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press

In the past there was nowhere for this kind of sentiment to go. Now it collects, solidifies and expresses itself online. Bloggers tap into it to gain a following and serve demand. Journalists call this the “echo chamber,” which is their way of downgrading it as a reliable source. But what’s really happening is that the authority of the press to assume consensus, define deviance and set the terms for legitimate debate is weaker when people can connect horizontally around and about the news.

Two things tend to mitigate Teh Awsum of the web in shifting the spheres of acceptable versus unacceptable political discourse and what is considered consensus thinking, or "what is a fact?" amongst the Villagers.  It should surprise no one that both problems, in my humble view, lay firmly within the authoritarian echo chamber we call Reich Wing Blogistan.  The problems are closed minds operating within a closed system.

Nothing is more damaging to the ideals of a free exchange of thoughts than the plethora of conservative bloggers who routinely purge their comment ques (in the rare case a conservative blogger allows comments at all).  This results in a self-reinforcing feedback loop, coupled with a preponderance of authors and fans of these web pundits who display and alarming tendency to parrot the conservative party line, brooking no dissent as such apostasies are anathema to their authoritarian personalities.

I've seen some analysis of the linking behavior among the conservative blogosphere, and the degree to which it can be represented as a closed hierarchical system is not so much alarming as displaying a nascent institutionalization of a true barrier to open dialogues.  I don't think we should dismiss lightly the stubborn resistance to change displayed in conservative Blogistan as dooming their endeavors, even though, "Hand in hand with the lack of liberalism and tolerance goes the lack of openness, constructiveness, democratic spirit and humor."

See, they may be small in numbers -- the few, the prideful, the inconsequential ninnys of negativism -- but they aren't going anywhere, completely content to hang on to one another for the next two or three decades until something doesn't work out right -- so they can blame Teh Clenis once again.

Professor Robert Ackland concluded, "there are significant differences in the behaviour of liberal and conservative bloggers, with the latter forming more dense patterns of linkages. We find broad support for this conclusion, and empirically assess the implications of differences in conservative/liberal linking behaviour for the online visibility of different political messages or ideologies."

No doubt you've taken to heart the idea that elections have consequences, and rejoice in the fact that we won.  Unfortunately that doesn't mean we can afford to ignore the conservatives -- because those that remain are increasingly united and like a cornered animal, dangerous.  That which did not destroy them only makes them stronger.

Ignore them at your peril.  I for one will continue to enjoy the sport of mocking, debunking, ridiculing and exposing the bankrupt followers of conservatism for their hypocrisy and illogical inconsistencies.  What else would I write about, how cool it is that Mr. Cool lives in the White House?  Boring.  It's his job to fix things and make us proud.  Us folks in the trenches gotta keep getting our hands dirty.