A Prophetic Subplot?

In Ender’s Game, one of the main subplot involves manipulating Earth’s various governments and societal sentiments through the use of diametrically opposing political commentaries, written by Ender’s older (genius as well) siblings, and distributed via their version of the internet.

The pseudonyms they used were Locke and Demosthenes, and their writings polarized different groups of people, and thrust their online personas into the limelight. (There’s more to the plot, but that’s enough for my purposes here).

Blogs and their Effects

Of course, in real life, we have blogs.

One would think that blogs can truly be used to broadcast a candidate’s message directly to people out in the blogosphere, and perhaps even engage in constructive commentaries among other politicians (I know, wishful thinking).

And perhaps they are. A little.

A Flaw in Today’s Politicians’ Blogs

When I take a look at the blogs of the major candidates — John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — I notice one thing they all have in common:

None of the candidates write on their own blog (as far as I can tell).

Why is that?

The blogs I’ve seen have posts written ostensibly by campaign managers and other like-minded supporters in their respective camps.

Should Politicians Blog (Subscriptions = Votes)

Could you picture a politician’s blog with 100’s of thousands, or perhaps millions of subscribers, dwarfing the “superblogs” I’ve seen so far? Would it be possible? I’m not sure.

Could you imagine looking at a politician’s feedburner count to see how popular he or she is? Wouldn’t it be kind of like voting?

But, maybe the time isn’t ripe yet.

Perhaps there’s a lack of a critical online mass (e.g. not enough voters are online), or perhaps the recent failures of electronic voting systems make people (and candidates) hesitant about security and authenticity, or perhaps these politicians just don’t have time, being out in the public eye all the time. Whatever.

But as the blogosphere continues to grow, I think blogs will play a more and more important role in shaping societal opinions, public policies and a whole lot of other stuff falling under the realm of governments.

Certainly Local Politicians Should Blog

At the least, on a local level, a mayor or a council member can easily start and maintain a blog to inform and gain feedback from their respective constituents. The numbers would be more manageable, and the communication between politician and people would stay more narrow, focused on local issues at hand.

In any case, I hope to see better, more informative, more constructive ways of using the web to broadcast a candidate’s message, and to engage with people in positive ways.

I realize I’ve only touched the proverbial tip of the iceberg in this matter. It will be interesting to see what happens in the years to come.

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. The ABC’s of Blogging