Irishelection.com are hosting a Blogging the Election conference in the Digital Hub in Dublin on October 7th, I see.
This appears to be conference for and about those bloggers who have an interest in politics – it is great to see blogs in Ireland breaking out of the tech niche. Guido Fawkes, noted UK political blogger is one of the guest speakers.
I’d nearly consider going myself if I hadn’t been completely turned off politics by my first hand experiences of the levels of chicanery, dishonesty, and backstabbing that are required to be a politician in Ireland, when my father did a small stint in politics in the 80s.
Come along and see if blogging can clean that up!! Not sure how but we can ask the politicans themselves on the day.
One of the best ways to change that Cian would be to change from multi-seat PR to a single seat party list system but even then, I think, we are doomed because the most scurrilous inevitably rise to the top.
You should be fairer to your Dad Tom. Or at least clarify that he was the subject of, rather than a participant in 🙂
Fair point Keith, although victim of might be more to the point. He was way too honourable for the profession.
Much as I’d like to see serious grassroots movements in politics, I wouldn’t go to this for the (admittedly cynical) reason that when bloggers get together, in /any/ context, the conversations wander inevitably away from the topic in hand, and end up revolving almost entirely around blogging (and rss, and seo, and microformats, and… *yawn*) to the point where I want to shoot myself in the head while standing at the top of a very high cliff (just to be sure).
People like Damien like to make pointed remarks about my “not a blog” assertion, but that’s why I distance myself from the, um, genre: bloggers start out talking about topics that interest them – whether that’s politics or technology of just their own personal lives – but they always come back to the subject of blogging, and all blogs tend to converge on that single subject. There are exceptions on particularly focused sites like Engadget and the like, but they’re businesses now, and I’m willing to bet the individuals involved talk about blogging 24/7 anyway.
And I’m sorry, but I find it incredibly boring; and I find it incredibly frustrating when I have to do it myself to make the point — like now. Bloggers are the new dorks, the new annoying Firefox advocates, the new Ubuntu bores, the new TLA geeks. Please, stop! 🙂
I think you do yourself an injustice there Tom.
After all, politics is a lot broader than electoral politics, even if that is what we’re used to thinking about when the phrase is used. People who are looking to have road speeds reduced in front of their schools are engaging in politics. People who organise themselves to protest at a closure of a hospital or the opening of a dump are taking part in politics.
No-one in Ireland can opt out of politics, as its effects are felt by everyone. The only thing they can do is opt out of having their opinions considered and their voices heard.
Which doesn’t seem like much of a victory to me.
Puts on her cynicproof kryptonite like shield.
Puting the disdain aside for the concept of ‘politics’ and the fact that bloggers talk tech when they are in the same room…
How about focussing on how people communicate, write and analyse? This for me is one of the reasons I suggested having this conference in the first place. It is the fact checking, debate, linking, suggestions of new writing, and the commentary that you don’t find anywhere else that I think will be interesting in exploring more.
Tom as someone who evangelises/teaches/promotes blogging I think you will be interested in one of the aims of this conference which will be to ‘evangelise’ it to political parties and politicians – to tell them that RSS feeds of their press releases send people to sleep and that telling stories and engaging with their electorates throughout blogging is something they need to think about seriously. Tonight as Bertie weeps on TV bloggers are writing and fact checking and speculating, tomorrow they might be writing career obituaries (ok cyncial shield down at this stage!)