It's a new dawn!

I was thinking of the words of Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane singers words at Woodstock today. As the band took the stage she intoned "It's a new dawn people." I thought of those words as I read an article in Politico today about the impact of viral videos and blogs on politics and political campaigns. Here are some of the money quotes:

Today, most people tune out paid marketing messages as fast as they can. Big media entities don't fare much better. We're far more likely to trust something a friend or acquaintance shares with us. So if someone posts a video with a statement about the campaign and shares it with 10 friends, who each tell 10 more, those 100 people may be more influenced by that one person than by any other political messenger they may encounter.

As I often consider my little piece of the blogosphere I was particularly buoyed by the following passage:

The same is true of the political blogosphere, where a handful of blogs may appear to have the lion's share of attention but a closer look shows that there are literally tens of thousands of sites that have at least 20 other sites linking to them. The amount of conversation going on in that arena is richer and, by sheer traffic alone, far larger than what you would find if you look at only the top 50 or 100 sites.

I have come across some interesting perspectives in the blogosphere that probably would not have survived the editorial filter of mainstream media. Indeed I very rarely will write a letter to the editor of a newspaper instead will publish my thoughts here. I think this passage sums it up nicely:

Instead, what is emerging is the most robust democratic and participatory political arena in America in perhaps two centuries. Not since the days of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and the myriad printer-pamphleteers have there been this many vibrant voices engaged in the national political debate.

Yep, It's a new dawn.

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