A Political Voice, but no Listeners

In addition to the emerging "elite class" on the blogosphere (noted below by ryan), the Internet also has the prominent precence of traditional corporate entities. Between the traditional elite and the new elite, is the Internet really better for being heard, or just better for being able to speak? The two are not the same.

The Trent Lott story of information flow from the blogosphere to mainstream media is clearly the exception, not the rule. TforA concludes by commenting, "The Lott affair showed that a few individuals--mostly outsiders with no budgets--could kick the national media into action and shake up the U.S. government." But the "outsiders" were already part of the blogosphere elite! And their power to "kick the national media into action" is overstated by TforA: Traditional news sources still dominate internet news while blogs function as the backwater, out of which occasionally comes a story wrongly ignored by the mainstream.

What is the impact for elections? First, power and influence in the real world translates to power online. Second, power online is, like in the real world, concentrated in the hands of a few.