Blogging = democracy?
In Sweden recently, the blogosphere has has taken up a considerable room in Swedish political debate. Internet-blogging has been hailed as a new form of ultimate democracy, where everyone can publish their opinion for everyone else to read. There are also sites such as knuff.se where you can track popular topics discussed on Swedish blogs, making it relatively easy to follow a debate despite it taking place on thousands of blogs and articles.
This week, Bo Rothstein, a prominent Swedish academic and debater, heavily criticised this new-found tool of democracy, by arguing that the debates on blogs in fact has a negative impact on democracy. His argument was that blog-posts have a tendency to be both discriminatory, racist and/or sexist, and often serve as a vehicle for personal insults. This kind of writing he argues, would never have gotten through the cencor of the debate pages in popular newspapers. When asked if the alternative, to remove blogs as a forum for debate, would be better, he replies that he has no interest in solving the problem, just stating that there is one.
Jesus. My opition has always been that a bad debate is always better than no debate. Maybe it is true that blogging has made people less held back in terms of their views, and less concerned about style, and the sensitive aspects of their content, feeling that they can express themselves as honestly and freely as they wish. And maybe this has led to below the belt attacks that hasn't been completely.. decent. But one has to remember that this kind of debating is still establishing itself, and maybe it will take some time before people get comfortable and find their place in terms of etiquette and responsibility.
And I also think that in Sweden, people are more sensitive to what they consider insulting compared to other countries. Maybe one just has to toughen up and answer back, and sometimes ignore comments, instead of crying saying that a debate that isn't cencored by someone clever at a published newspaper, is a bad one.
This week, Bo Rothstein, a prominent Swedish academic and debater, heavily criticised this new-found tool of democracy, by arguing that the debates on blogs in fact has a negative impact on democracy. His argument was that blog-posts have a tendency to be both discriminatory, racist and/or sexist, and often serve as a vehicle for personal insults. This kind of writing he argues, would never have gotten through the cencor of the debate pages in popular newspapers. When asked if the alternative, to remove blogs as a forum for debate, would be better, he replies that he has no interest in solving the problem, just stating that there is one.
Jesus. My opition has always been that a bad debate is always better than no debate. Maybe it is true that blogging has made people less held back in terms of their views, and less concerned about style, and the sensitive aspects of their content, feeling that they can express themselves as honestly and freely as they wish. And maybe this has led to below the belt attacks that hasn't been completely.. decent. But one has to remember that this kind of debating is still establishing itself, and maybe it will take some time before people get comfortable and find their place in terms of etiquette and responsibility.
And I also think that in Sweden, people are more sensitive to what they consider insulting compared to other countries. Maybe one just has to toughen up and answer back, and sometimes ignore comments, instead of crying saying that a debate that isn't cencored by someone clever at a published newspaper, is a bad one.
Kommentarer
Trackback
