I don’t usually read The Weekly Standard, of course, but this op-ed piece posted on the CBS News site caught my eye.
The author, Dean Barnett, has some interesting analyses of the left blogosphere in general and of Daily Kos in particular.
His analysis is flawed, of course, because Barnett makes the all-too-common error of conflating “the progressive blogosphere” with Daily Kos, as if it is the alpha and the omega of blogging on the left, but there are still some claims in Barnett’s article that merit examination.
More below the fold.
Barnett makes two claims that are somewhat startling to me.
Claim 1: The number of people participating on Daily Kos and in the political blogosphere in general is in sharp decline.
The conventional wisdom is that blogs are a growing force with unlimited potential. But there is a dirty little secret: The blogosphere’s growth has flat-lined, and in many cases shrunk. Last October, the Daily Kos had approximately 23 million visitors. By last month, the number had sunk to 16 million. The decline was gradual and sustained. Kos’ virtual progressive ranks, at least, are not growing.
The same trend is in evidence nearly everywhere else in the blogosphere, too. The second-most influential left-wing Web site, Atrios, now averages fewer visitors than it did eight months ago and there is no data indicating the readership of conservative blogs is growing, either.
This suggests that the blogosphere is already a mature medium and that its rapid growth phase is now past. And there is nothing to indicate that this relatively young dog is about to learn any new tricks.
Claim 2: The political blogosphere is not capable of expanding its influence in politics and is a “one trick pony” (or possibly a two-trick pony).
Certainly, the blogosphere is adept at many things. It can ignite a campaign; it can elevate obscure figures (such as Howard Dean or Cindy Sheehan) or overlooked issues (such as the Swift Boat veterans or the 60 Minutes scandal) to national prominence. It can also be a force in intra-party skirmishes; the smaller the skirmish, the greater the relative power of the blogosphere. But the blogosphere developed these abilities years ago. The notion that its power is still nascent is grounded in media hype, not reality.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/16/opinion/main1722921.shtml
Yes, I know, it’s The Weekly Standard and it’s edited by Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes–hardly friends of the Left or even of the Democrats–so one has to be careful when examining claims made from a source with such an obvious bias.
Still, the claims on site traffic at the bigger political blogs is something that I didn’t expect…and I, too, have been wondering if political blogs really have the potential to expand, or if they have reached (or even passed) the limits of their influence.