When Bloggers hookup: getting hired, getting sponsored, getting snookered, getting lost
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Hatttip to Feministing for pointing to this Christian Science Monitor commentary that analyzes what happens when bloggers and pols hookup.
At Buckeye State Blog, Jerid is soliciting input re: BlogPac's offer to sponsor BSB (and As Ohio Goes according to the BSB post).
Why lump these two items together? Because their existence further reveals an en masse movement - by people who want to amplify their message - to pluck individuals who've taken a risk and expressed themselves - often through blogs - in a way that resonates with other individuals. Such pluckers know that this skill should not be taken for granted.
Anyone can rant and call people names. But not everyone can express themselves in a way that makes other people care and think and re-think and change. And so, when people need people to help them spread and/or amplify a message, where do they go? They can hire PR and marketing folks, professional communications folks. And, now, more and more, they can go to a place where they will find people willing to speak their mind and do so in a powerful yet intimate way: the blogosphere, or blogworld, in which nearly 60 million blogs reside and in which at least a few folks, previously unknown, can do what the pluckers need.
Of course, many of those folks are blogging for their own reasons, and maybe for very different reasons, from one to the next. Some will be more easily enticed to hook-up with pols once approached, and others less inclined. That's all okay too.
These options - trading in independence for affiliation with something bigger, or maintaining independence at the risk of reaching a smaller audience - don't vary too much, no matter how you finesse them. Just like you can't be kind of pregnant, you can't be kind of being paid by someone. Either you are, or you aren't. Being transparent about it just means that you're letting the consumer know so that he or she can decide how to weigh what's then said on the blog or by the individual.
Every blog author must decide for him or herself as to which direction they want to go in. I've imagined that so long as I could write for someone, work on something that is a passion of mine, that promotes and furthers and advances a belief I hold dear, being paid to do so would be fine. Otherwise, not likely to happen.
In fact, recently someone who continues to work on a project I left some time ago, a project which caused me great moral tzuras at different times, was told that she's taken on my role as the group rabblerouser. I take pride in that, of course, because it helps me know that I didn't back down, even if I ended up compromising and eventually moving on.
Politicians finding bloggers to help them express themselves to more people is a natural development. Larger groups like Blogpac seeking to wield a way into Ohio voters' consciousness, likewise, is a natural development.
And so, maybe bloggers deciding that being shown the money is worth giving up independence is also a natural development.
But if that's so, it's also just more evidence, like the weather we've had in Cleveland lately, of what little impact humans sometimes have on natural developments. And how, in turn, the choices we make likewise affect those developments.
At Buckeye State Blog, Jerid is soliciting input re: BlogPac's offer to sponsor BSB (and As Ohio Goes according to the BSB post).
Why lump these two items together? Because their existence further reveals an en masse movement - by people who want to amplify their message - to pluck individuals who've taken a risk and expressed themselves - often through blogs - in a way that resonates with other individuals. Such pluckers know that this skill should not be taken for granted.
Anyone can rant and call people names. But not everyone can express themselves in a way that makes other people care and think and re-think and change. And so, when people need people to help them spread and/or amplify a message, where do they go? They can hire PR and marketing folks, professional communications folks. And, now, more and more, they can go to a place where they will find people willing to speak their mind and do so in a powerful yet intimate way: the blogosphere, or blogworld, in which nearly 60 million blogs reside and in which at least a few folks, previously unknown, can do what the pluckers need.
Of course, many of those folks are blogging for their own reasons, and maybe for very different reasons, from one to the next. Some will be more easily enticed to hook-up with pols once approached, and others less inclined. That's all okay too.
These options - trading in independence for affiliation with something bigger, or maintaining independence at the risk of reaching a smaller audience - don't vary too much, no matter how you finesse them. Just like you can't be kind of pregnant, you can't be kind of being paid by someone. Either you are, or you aren't. Being transparent about it just means that you're letting the consumer know so that he or she can decide how to weigh what's then said on the blog or by the individual.
Every blog author must decide for him or herself as to which direction they want to go in. I've imagined that so long as I could write for someone, work on something that is a passion of mine, that promotes and furthers and advances a belief I hold dear, being paid to do so would be fine. Otherwise, not likely to happen.
In fact, recently someone who continues to work on a project I left some time ago, a project which caused me great moral tzuras at different times, was told that she's taken on my role as the group rabblerouser. I take pride in that, of course, because it helps me know that I didn't back down, even if I ended up compromising and eventually moving on.
Politicians finding bloggers to help them express themselves to more people is a natural development. Larger groups like Blogpac seeking to wield a way into Ohio voters' consciousness, likewise, is a natural development.
And so, maybe bloggers deciding that being shown the money is worth giving up independence is also a natural development.
But if that's so, it's also just more evidence, like the weather we've had in Cleveland lately, of what little impact humans sometimes have on natural developments. And how, in turn, the choices we make likewise affect those developments.
JBlog Me
2 Comments:
I always sought to recruit and network with bloggers I thought were sexy.
But I never required them to be easy.
j/k
Definitely cracked a smile on that one - thanks. Cute. I don't want to know how true.
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