are blogs toxic? or how I won Time's "Person of the Year"

hamo comments:

"I rarely have people say this to my face, but I seem to hear it around the place a little more often than I’d like.

It seems that in some folk’s estimation it isn‘t ok to ask questions of current church practices or to express an opinion that is non-conformist. The phrase that I seem to hear most often is ‘blogs are toxic’, as if to suggest the expression of an alternative point of view is somehow dangerous… or poisonous…"

I remember reading several years ago a Fortune article while flying on a business trip that talked about how Lotus Notes has transformed this particular consulting company. This must have been in the early days of email because whenever a consultant would have a question about some area in which they did not have expertise, they would just email all their other fellow consultants to get answers. Suddenly every consultant was instantly smarter. email had worked to de-hierarchalize this particular company so that employees were no longer just valued based on their particular ranking in the company's food chain; they were valued according to their knowledge and wisdom.

This is the upside of the declining cost of information.

Another potential benefit of information's cost decline is the lowered cost of platform. It's a positive result when illegitimately marginalized groups or individuals are empowered to advocate their point of view.

This can, understandably, be threatening to the status quo and to institutions who are used to having more control over their information. After the printed page lowered the cost of info, the Roman Catholic church was rocked. And so we read of Westminster Theological Seminary feeling the need to monitor its students' blogs, the Church of England's concern with staffer's blogging, etc. And I have had conversations with highly placed church leaders where they complained about how anyone with a computer can hold forth on blogs and criticize.

This radical shake-up in the status quo led to Time Magazine to select "You" as "Person of the Year" Reuters reports:

"You were named Time magazine "Person of the Year" on Saturday for the explosive growth and influence of user-generated Internet content such as blogs, video-file sharing site YouTube and social network MySpace.

"For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, Time's Person of the Year for 2006 is you," the magazine's Lev Grossman wrote."

Surely the declining cost of information is good or bad depending on the quality of the one speaking. Dehierarchalization works best when the members of a particular community are mature. That being said, I find myself in general agreement with Andrew that we are in a position of a net sum gain when it comes to new media and communication.