political blogging

i have to say out of all the topics we've covered so far, i found this one to be particularly interesting. i feel like i say that every week; i guess i'm just suprised at my level of enjoyment stemming from this paper. i wasn't convinced it was a subject i was interested in, but i was proved wrong. i'm studying pols here in dunedin (but communications is my major) and have always been an avid follower of both domestic and international politics. i'm known amongst my friends to get pretty riled up about it all sometimes.

in one of my other papers, we spent some time focusing on the situation in china/tibet, and the level of censorship faced by those within china. so relating my own views and knowledge to last week's readings was pretty easy (and interesting!) for me. the lecturer even showed us a website that (somehow... not sure entirely how it works...) lets you see whether or not particular websites are accessible in china. from the websites tested in class, it was pretty restricted. i also heard something on the news the other night about how wikipedia was now able to be accessed within china. even though i don't agree with a lot of the political blogs i come across, viewpoint wise, i appreciate that here in new zealand, unlike china, we don't get so censured when it comes to voicing our own opinions. or even our right to read whatever we like. and even though i read quite a few, i had never really thought about political blogs being the domain of right-wing males - until i read it in this weeks readings. so i had a bit of an "ahhh" moment when reading. on the other hand, sometimes coming across certain political-based writings in the blogosphere makes it hard to be of the opinion that free speech is always a great thing. there are lots of blogs out there that spread not only ignorant bias (on the lower end of the scale) but also full-blown hate at the other end. but i guess that's the way the world is really.

again, another one of my papers this semester has had elements focusing on the use of new technology such as the internet in the political arena. i'm currently working on a group assignment, where my role is to basically pretend i'm a member of the green party's campaign team, whose area of research is the benefits of utilising the internet. i've come across blogs from political parties and mmp's themselves... but not sure really how significant social platforms and that kind of thing are on election results. i dont think you can really argue the fact that the internet is a fast growing communication medium, and political uses are continuing to increase. but do political blogs, facebook pages etc cater only to those who are super interested in politics? does average joe bloggs (no pun intended, but doing it anyway) really care about john key's facebook page, or even heard of http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/? will political writings online have any effect at all on the politically apathetic or noncommittal?