Beyond the Echo Chamber
Reshaping Politics Through Networked Progressive Media
JESSICA CLARK AND TRACY VAN SLYKE
Paperback: The New Press
$19.95
By Leonard Doyle
If you've ever been confused by the alphabet soup of online progressive media outlets in the US, here, finally, is a handbook to decode them.
Progressives, unlike their wimpy liberal cousins, have a political identity that is left of center without being fundamentally radical.
The movement has provided a rallying cry for younger democratic activists (by no means all of them enamored with the Democratic party) over the past couple of years.
Barrack Obama surfed his way to the White House, pushed by a wave of online progressive activism. Though many profess some buyers remorse at the way he has dodged much of the progressive agenda he espoused on the campaign trail, they are again using online media activism to keep his feet to the flames.
The progressives emerged from the political movements and parties from the turn of the twentieth century. The movement stands for social progress, as opposed to conservative philosophies that seek to maintain older systems of value and power.
"At its core," John Halpin, from the Think Tank Center for American progress writes, "progressivism is a non-ideological, pragmatic system of thought grounded in solving problems and maintaining strong values within society."
In what seems like the blinking of an eye, a vibrant breed of networked media outlets has emerged to set the pulse of America racing and leverage the power of articulate, socially aware people across the country.
For the past few years and at an ever quickening pace, it has been breaking agenda-setting political stories, exposing corruption and hammering away until the living-dead of mainstream media (MSM in progressive speak) woke up and caught up with what was being reported, while being read and watched by tens of thousands of people online - and not in the newspapers or on network Television.
Its worth remembering that it was bloggers on the Left who practically drove Barrack Obama to distraction in the election by reporting his 'bittergate' comments ahead of the Pennsylvania primary.
Only by keeping an eye on such web portals as Talking Points Memo, Brave New Films and Firedoglake can you expect to be informed of the breaking stories and issues in American politics.
Whats happened is that the esteemed (an somewhat predictable) journals of the Left, such as Mother Jones, the American Prospect and The Nation have helped spawn a new participatory media environment, in which literally hundreds of thousands of activist commentators have influenced political campaigns, public debates, and policymaking at unprecedented levels.
The authors, Jessica Clark and Tracy Van Slyke document the blindingly fast shift that has taken place in the US media universe over the last two years from one that is 'pale, stale and male,' to one in which far better reflects American society.
They point out that progressive media outlets have driven the technological and reporting shifts transforming media and politics, but many have a long way to go to achieve maximum impact.
For the future they advise the progressive media, to develop relationships with minority users and move beyond their core audiences (white and pale), reach out to women and gay communities (not male) and stop being so serious all the time, (that is, wonkish, humorlsss and stale).
Beyond the Echo Chamber is based on five years of research and extensive interviews with key media players and new media experts. Though speaking to the choir for the most part, the book will be carefully analysed for the insights it reveals about some of the most successful new media outlets of recent years.
The chapter on the success of the Talking Points Memo blog (TPM to its followers) offers a behind the scenes look at one of America's most successful stable of political blogs. Joshua Micah Marshall first threw in a career as a policy wonk to work as a journalist.
Then he started TPM as a sideline and began making waves by reporting Senator Trent Lott's (R-Miss) contentious remarks at Strom Thurmond's one-hundreth birthday party. Marshall then then hammered away at the story until it took off.
Lott's comments indicated to many a undying support for the racist segregationist policies that lost Thurmond the 1948 presidential campaign on the Dixiecrat (or States' Rights) ticket. Lott said: "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either."
TPM doggedly followed the story - with the mainstream media yawning - until Lott was forced to step down as Senate majority leader. That put some lead in TPM's pencil and by 2004 he has raised enough money from reader contributions and online advertising to employ himself full time on his own website. By 2007 he was pounding on the door of the Bush White House for sacking eight US attorneys around the country, all for partisan for political reasons.
It scooped mainstream organisations leading Senator John Kerry to tell the Financial Times that Josh Marshall was "a progressive Matt Drudge ins the ascendancy, but Josh actually does the journalistic spadework."
Beyond the Echo Chamber has the potential to change the US national conversation about progressive media and the future of journalism and it has lessons too for the world outside.
Britain's newspapers are so loud an opinionated that they little room for bloggers to stand out. But by sneering at participatory media, these outlets risk being left behind by emerging players.
The same is true around the world where online media is still relatively in its infancy and progressive journalists, bloggers, producers, activists, readers, and policymakers are only now emerging.
The authors
Jessica Clark directs the Future of Public Media Project at American University's Center for Social Media and is the former executive editor of In These Times. Tracy Van Slyke is currently the program director of the Media Consortium and is the former publisher of In These Times. Her twitter is @tracyvs. . The two are co-authors of the progressive media blog Beyond the Echo (beyondtheecho.net)
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