LIVE From Pittsburgh: Blending online activism and offline activism
As Netroots Nation began to wind down, I went to a particularly motivating panel discussing how blogging can contribute and help field campaigns.
The panel was caled Yes We Did? How Blogging Can (and Can't) Support a Field Campaign featured Jeremy Bird, Karl Singer, Katherine Haenschen, Pamela Coukos, Janice Caswell, and was moderated by Sean Quinn.
Blogging and field campaigns each start with a fundamental problem: they both compete for time. A good blog post takes time away from phonebanking or canvasing. Likewise, some good bloggers are silenced when they work on campaigns because they just don't have the time to blog.
Both blogging and field work are important and can be beneficial to each other. Blogging can raise awareness of a candidate and can reach voters and donors in different ways. For example, Darcy Burner would never have gotten vast financial support from the netroots without becoming involved in the community, including blogging on Daily Kos. However, if everyone was blogging instead of canvassing and phonebanking, the candidate would surely lose.
So while blogs are important means of communication, they're not all important. Blogging can never replicate the power of person-person contact. Not everyone is on the Internet reading blogs. The people who need to be convinced in a field campaign probably are not reading blogs. Therefore to reach them, field work is critical.
The panel came to the conclusion that in a battle to enact policy, such as healthcare reform, blogging is not as effective as calling people, lobbying members of Congress, and educating neighbors about an issue.
The panel came to the conclusion that online activism and field work coexist and can bolster the investment of time into the other.
So in other words, bloggers should get off their computers once in a while and do a bit of offline organizing. And people who do not spend much time on blogs should log on more often and become involved in the conversation online.
The panel was caled Yes We Did? How Blogging Can (and Can't) Support a Field Campaign featured Jeremy Bird, Karl Singer, Katherine Haenschen, Pamela Coukos, Janice Caswell, and was moderated by Sean Quinn.
Blogging and field campaigns each start with a fundamental problem: they both compete for time. A good blog post takes time away from phonebanking or canvasing. Likewise, some good bloggers are silenced when they work on campaigns because they just don't have the time to blog.
Both blogging and field work are important and can be beneficial to each other. Blogging can raise awareness of a candidate and can reach voters and donors in different ways. For example, Darcy Burner would never have gotten vast financial support from the netroots without becoming involved in the community, including blogging on Daily Kos. However, if everyone was blogging instead of canvassing and phonebanking, the candidate would surely lose.
So while blogs are important means of communication, they're not all important. Blogging can never replicate the power of person-person contact. Not everyone is on the Internet reading blogs. The people who need to be convinced in a field campaign probably are not reading blogs. Therefore to reach them, field work is critical.
The panel came to the conclusion that in a battle to enact policy, such as healthcare reform, blogging is not as effective as calling people, lobbying members of Congress, and educating neighbors about an issue.
The panel came to the conclusion that online activism and field work coexist and can bolster the investment of time into the other.
So in other words, bloggers should get off their computers once in a while and do a bit of offline organizing. And people who do not spend much time on blogs should log on more often and become involved in the conversation online.
# Posted by Daniel : 10:51 AM
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