How to Notice a Theme
The other day I briefly discussed live blogging and wondered what good it is. I found that (potential) good in the conversation that the Cover It Live software makes possible.
What has always bugged me about live blogging (my doing it anyway) is that if you go for speed you sacrifice depth, and if go for depth you miss a lot of good stuff. That’s obviously an over-simplification.
But with active participants in the live blogging, good things can begin to happen. For example, those who have been participating with me (4 at one point last night!) have identified, and begun to discuss, interesting themes at the DNC. We’ve identified the “future” theme, the “kitchen-table” theme, and the “warrior” theme. You might also call these memes or emerging master narratives. Or, as the third umpire says, “they ain’t nuthin’ ’til I calls ‘em.” (In case you don’t know the routine, the first ump says “I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em,” and the second ump says “I calls ‘em as they are.”)
So while any given live blogging session here is shallow and somewhat goofy, we can mine the text for its gems and elaborate on them later. There’s the value.
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
