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10/31/2003

Road to White House a Long Hard Blog
Lawrence Lessig says grassroots blogs are transforming presidential politics:

Whether or not it elects the next president, the blog may be the first innovation from the Internet to make a real difference in election politics. But to see just why requires a bit of careful attention.
The "why" boils down to this: blogs allow for grassroots-up communication, which is far different from the top-down broadcast model.
"Enter the blog, a space where people gab. As implemented by most campaigns, it is a place where candidates gab down to the people. But when done right, as the Howard Dean campaign apparently is doing, the blog is a tool for building community. The trick is to turn the audience into the speaker. A well-structured blog inspires both reading and writing. And by getting the audience to type, candidates get the audience committed. Engagement replaces reception, which in turn leads to real space action. The life of the Dean campaign on the Internet is not really life on the Internet. It's the activity in real space that the Internet inspires.
Read the whole thing.