re: #245 Floral Giraffe

I would not agree. Interesting, yes, but conclusions here, well, no.
I don’t know that “The right has a more top-down approach and consequently owns talk radio.” Aren’t the radio hosts independently producing their shows & airilng their viewpoints? Why would they take talking points from “the right” or “the left”?

“Top-down” in the sense that the content generated is generated top-down from the host or personality. The message is constrained on a daily basis by the host and all calls are pre-screened. It’s the opposite of the net-ethos.

The net, on the other hand, is total wildwest, because the conversation is taken over by the commentators, — it’s the nature of the format. Sites that don’t allow comments at all aren’t taking advantage of the full opportunities of the format.

The unruly, rowdy, ideologically diverse nature of ‘the left’ in the US means that they’re culturally, ideologically, and dispositionally suited to the net. They(we) can hit the ground running. The right is playing catchup.

Here’s something I notice: the left has for years made online activism easy and streamlined. I can think of at least 5 places offhand that have action alerts and you automatically get emails about how to participate. Enter your zipcode and your name and you can sign a petition, etc. You don’t even need to know who your congresspeople are. It takes literally one minute a day to particpate in say, 5 different actions.

On the right— nothing like that. A few places that send you an email telling you that for a donation, they’ll mail a teabag to congress or something equally farcical.

The left owns online activism. Hopefully the right will catch up.