Army of Davids Update

From An Army of Davids by Glenn Reynolds:

[W]hen “making” media is cheap, and an unlimited supply of people are “making it,” what happens to journalism? Something that journalists may not like: Journalism, right now, is in the process of reverting to its earlier status as an activity, rather than a profession. [Prediction]: If Big Media let their position go without a fight to keep it by fair means or foul, they’ll be the first example of a privileged group that did so. So beware…. I think we’re already beginning to see signs of that backlash, complete with the growth of alarmist articles (like a [Nov. 14, 2005] cover story in Forbes) on the dangers posed by bloggers…).

You want to keep this media revolution going? Be ready to fight for it. I think people will be. Am I too optimistic? We’ll see.

I could write more about the role of blogs in changing politics and media, but that task has been admirably performed by Dan Gillmor in We the Media, Joe Trippi in The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, and especially by Hugh Hewitt in his book Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World.

An Army of Davids, pp. 101-02.

Caution: I haven’t read Hewitt's Blog book, but I note that Hewitt is the very same “journalist” mauled by Helen Thomas in the radio encounter referenced in the immediately preceding The Geebus post.

In any event, there are a bunch of books on this topic from various authors, as a simple search on Amazon.com will reveal. Caught my eye: R. Scott Hall, The Blog Ahead: How Citizen-Generated Media Is Radically Tilting the Communications Balance; and Biz Stone, Who Let the Blogs Out?: A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs.

See also Armstrong & Zuniga, Crashing the Gate, reviewed favorably by the NY Times here, as discussed by blogger Glenn Greenwald (the subject of the next The Geebus post after this one).


More comments on An Army of Davids:

Mickey Kaus (Slate, 3/22/06)

Jim Geraghty (National Review Online, 3/20/06)

See also the Glenn Reynolds Interview post on The Geebus, March 16, 2006.

And don’t forget this bit of HTML slapdashery, now coursing through the blogosphere unchecked (and first noted in this space here).

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Hoist on own Petard Dept: Instapundit in the future (Sullivan 5.12.2009).

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Digital Davids TPM 6.19.2009