A Blog is a Little First Amendment Machine / Jay Rosen

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-rosen/a-blog-is-a-little-first-_b_50164.html



A Blog is a Little First Amendment Machine


When in the eighteenth century the press first appeared on the political stage the people on the other end of it were known as the public. Public opinion and the political press arose together. But in the age of the mass media the public got transformed into an audience.

This happened because the mass media were one way, one-to-many, and "read only." When journalism emerged as a profession it reflected these properties of its underlying platform. But now we have the Web, which is two-way (rather than one) many-to-many (rather than one-to-many) and "read-write" rather than "read only."

HE THEN DETAILS 5 STORIES ABOUT BLOGGING'S EFFECTS:
Chris Allbritton: independent war correspondent.
Trent Lott Speaks; bloggers listen.
FireDogLake Shines at the Libby Trial.
TPM Muckraker Gets a Document Dump.
John Markoff Mocks Blogging.

By 2003 the press had started to shift social location. Much of it is still based in The Media and will be for some time, but some is in nonprofit hands, and some of the franchise is now in public hands because of the Web, the weblog and other forms of citizen media. Naturally our ideas about it are going to change. The franchise is being enlarged.

The most famous words ever written about freedom of the press are in the U.S. Constitution: "Congress shall make no law..." But the second most famous words come from the critic A.J. Liebling: "freedom of the press belongs to those who own one." Well, freedom of the press still belongs to those who own one, and blogging means practically anyone can own one. That is the Number One reason why blogs--and this discussion--matter.

With blogging, an awkward term, we designate a fairly beautiful thing: the extension to many more people of a free press franchise, the right to publish your thoughts to the world.
Wherever blogging spreads the dramas of free expression follow. A blog, you see, is a little First Amendment machine.

This is the speech I gave at the International Communication Association annual conference in San Francisco, May 27, 2007. The conference panel was entitled, "News, Journalism And The Democratic Potential of Blogging." It is lightly revised from the remarks as delivered.