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Wednesday, Dec 31, 2003
the weight im in
"Hence, the weight in the Senate is about to shift, to those Senators who can provide a wide bandwidth message that their partisans will not merely repeat, but amplify by finding new arguments in its favor. The internet is finally the place where main street America comes - indeed, it is witnessing the rebirth of Main Street America - a place which does not merely put thumbs up or thumbs down - but which takes information from a diverse array of sources, and funnels them through context - that is done by linking - and community - which is done by commenting, either on the original web site, or in the text around the link. In short, instead of a public life that consists of push down and push back - public life is going to be centered around campaigns and organizations - like Dean's campaign, and like Moveon.org - that can pull people in, and pull people together. The definition of this moment is when people in a movement begin talking to each other, and making distant connections."
pressing information
"Press think has terms of art, and one of them is "master narrative," borrowed from literary critics. I use it to describe a part of the press that too easily eludes attention: the big story, sometimes the back story, often a fragment of a narrative, that generates all the other stories, which are smaller pieces."
man united
"Hallin's device helps us grasp the tension between someone like Krugman and others in the press. For he actually places the current Administration in the sphere of deviance. Or rather, he argues that Bush and company have tried to take policies from beyond the pale straight into "consensus" without being forced through the space of legitmate controversy. This, he thinks, cannot be done without the acquiescence of journalists who patrol these boundaries."