Blog wars: shock and awe vs the long haul

Blog opinion is an untamed as a domestic cat: it might look cute and fluffy, but while your back is turned, its claws are out and it's offering you a dead rat.

On the one hand, blogs (and social networks) are naked attempts to court popularity by making claims judged to fit the Zeitgeist. When this happens successfully, campaigns can snowball in hours, witness the bizarre attack in the last few days on the merits of Ian McEwan's novels. All guns blare, no cliché is spared, in vast commando raids against perceived canards and lame ducks. This is the tabloid, video-on-demand, flashmob approach to blogging. Blink, and the moment may have passed.

On the other hand, some blogs attempt to build a case, create an environment, and construct characteristics that develop depth and originality: to find an authentic voice of expertise, filtering unseen angles from the morass of raw news of any given moment. This is the broadsheet, feature-length documentary, writer-producer-director approach to blogging. The moment becomes an opportunity for blog-authors to create a following around a persona.

So, 'shock and awe' versus 'the long haul'. It's not really an either/or scenario, as both approaches work in different time scales. But the 'reconstruction' efforts to make sense of the mayhem are what define the context for creating opinion and evolving the culture. In the end, battles may overwhelm 'enemies' for a while but negotiation within a framework of competing demands is what wins the day.