The Daily Background

Mike Connery over at MyDD has an interesting post up about the general (and worrying) disconnect between young progressives (centered around social networking sites) and the blogosphere at large (which is generally centered around an older audience and an older set of bloggers). In some respects, this goes to the core question of how to engage young people with politics. Connery writes:

According to the latest Blogads survey, 14-30 year olds make up just 16% of the blogosphere, and I’ve long noticed that most blogs run by youth organizations are disconnected both from each other and from the larger blogosphere. Campus Progress and Young People For both operate their own internal blog communities, but the content on these blogs frequently runs days (sometimes weeks) behind the regular blogosphere chatter, and rarely responds to what the larger blogosphere is discussing or writes in any way that would indicate the users even read the major progressive blogs.

In some respects, the lack of interest and effort is understandable. More young people are politically engaged online through social networks than through blogs. Students and other young organizers need to go where their peers gather, so much organizing takes place on those sites. By working on and through social networks, youth organizers are building another branch of the netroots and bringing their fellow Millennials politics. That is good, and nothing I’m writing here is meant to denigrate that or suggest that it is work that should not be done, or even made second horse to greater blogosphere participation.

On the other hand, the disadvantages are readily apparent. Youth organizations are not adequately preparing their members for participation in the new political landscape. There is a political literacy level that is not being met. Local blogs are increasingly an important piece of progressive infrastructure, and if young organizers aren’t reading the major blogs, I’m guessing they’re even less likely to know about (let alone how to approach and partner with) local blogs that might be an information resource and outlet for their local activities. These organizations are also losing the valuable echo chamber/media amplifier and (psychological, intellectual, monetary, volunteer) support network that blogs can provide.

This is something that I occasionally think about, and Connery’s post reminded me that there isn’t really much of a youth blogosphere. Blogs to young people are livejournals and xangas and such where emo kids complain about their lives and abandon blogs within about a month, or don’t update it frequently. If you look at the livejournal blogosphere, there’s very little political stuff going on there, and the audience is much younger. The same goes for blogger, though perhaps to a lesser extent.

But there’s very little overlap- and I only know this because most of the time when blogs link to me, they’re standalone blogs, rather than blogs on sites like livejournal or blogger, etc. And there’s the whole issue of youth. I know of very few fellow youth bloggers, and many of the ones that I know of are lacking in insight, and good quality analysis. Are progressive online politics too fragmented to work cohesively to be a major political force? I don’t know, but there’s a major void in terms of political blogs that are geared towards youth. And it’s a gap that’s screaming to be filled.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog