By Request: Barriers to Entry

Freddie asks:

How does your own experience reflect on the fact that the supposedly democratizing aspects of blogs have been co-opted by the traditional media? Do you think that there is a kind of failure in now being under the imprimatur of the Atlantic? Doesn't the fact that every Atlantic blogger is Ivy-League educated and old media connected undercut the notion that the web has opened up avenues in media previously denied to "regular people"?

I think that's the wrong way of looking at it. The fact that The Atlantic's bloggers tend to have gone to fancy schools reflects the fact that, as has long been the case, it's really helpful to have gone to a fancy school if you want to get a job at a prestigious magazine. The democratizing power of the internet hasn't, in other words, democratized the hiring practices of The Atlantic.

What it has done, however, is democratized acquiring an audience. It used to be that to have a big audience for your writing, you needed to get hired by a periodical with an established audience. But these days, a very large portion of the most-read political blogs are upstart operations -- DailyKos, FireDogLake, Talking Points Memo, Atrios, etc. That's where the democracy comes in. Of course, being associated with a prominent brand can help you get readers. And so can being well-connected more generally. In particular, it's much easier to launch a new online product if it's associated with an existing, successful online product. The Internet has not, in other words, completely eliminated the barriers to entry. But it has reduced them.

It's difficult to start a new blog without institutional support and make it successful, but it's easier than starting a new magazine. And it's easier for institutions of all kinds to launch or acquire blogs that become successful (think of the Center for American Progress's wildly successful ThinkProgress) than it would be for those institutions to start new magazines. Consequently, the competition for eyeballs online is quite a bit fiercer than is the competition for print readers (Time competes with Newsweek, US News and World Report, and that's it -- no blog has such an empty niche -- and most newspapers don't have any competitors at all) and established position isn't nearly as useful as it is in old media.

Does that mean the internet is a level playing field? No. Does it make online communications a completely democratic medium? No. But is the field more level and more democratic than print? Absolutely.

Comments

Related curious question: Do you think that if Matt-in-2001 started a blog today, he would be as successful as you have been?

Posted by Andrew Edwards | June 16, 2008 12:55 PM

The Atlantic is prestigious? I mean, now?

Posted by norbizness | June 16, 2008 1:06 PM

ShorterMatthewYglesias: The internet is good for me, not good for you.

Posted by Ikram | June 16, 2008 1:11 PM

But is the field more level and more democratic than print? Absolutely.

The comparison seems useless. Print media is a mature industry, blogging is in its infancy. I think Freddie's point was that as time goes on, blogging is starting to take on the top-down characteristics of old media.

In my opinion, such a change is inevitable. However idealistic some might be about the "every man a journalist" idea behind blogging, building and retaining a readership requires far more work, for far more time, than most writers can possibly do without making a full-time job of it. And once that happens, organizations that can afford to pay writers to actually make a full-time job of it are going to have a big advantage.

Posted by James Gary | June 16, 2008 1:12 PM

Wow, on re-reading my comment, it seems remarkably incoherent. Hopefully I got my point across (the need to spend money in order to create quality content) somewhere in there.

Posted by James Gary | June 16, 2008 1:18 PM

Following on Andrew's comment, I think early adoption of the technology is something overlooked here... but that's the way it is with most new trends or markets, so I won't say I'm surprised that it seems to apply to blogging too.

Posted by Trips | June 16, 2008 1:29 PM

That's a good response, and you're right, of course. The web is certainly a freer and more open vehicle for sharing information and opinions.

I would just echo James Gary: my fear is that as time goes on, more and more popular bloggers will be appropriated into the old media, and old barriers will be re-entrenched. I'm not the kind to think that new media is necessarily better than old, or that underground media is essentially more true than establishment. But I do believe that old/institutional media functions best when it has a robust, lively underground media that critiques and checks it.

But again, that is actually a much more powerful phenomenon in the age of the Web. I guess part of it is just aesthetic; I like thinking that your voice and your talent (which is considerable) can stand on its own, without the legitimization of the Atlantic name. But then I don't have to pay your bills....

Posted by Freddie | June 16, 2008 2:00 PM

I like the rumsfeldian self-questioning at the end there

Posted by drive by troll | June 16, 2008 2:16 PM

For sure blogging is more democratic than any other mass-circulation medium, by a country mile, and they are delivering a quality product if you are prepared to be discriminating.

Posted by Chris Dornan | June 16, 2008 2:40 PM

The real value in blogging is that I no longer am restricted to information that's filtered by the mass media, but can instead get alternative views without trudging down to the library stacks at a local university. For example, being able to read left-of-center economics blogs by the likes of Max Sawicky (gone now, but not forgotten), Dani Rodrik, Brad DeLong, etc. has been a huge change from the days of reading and listening to the same old Econ 101 nostrums in print and on the air.

Posted by David W. | June 16, 2008 3:10 PM