Political Webloggers Warry of Campaign Efforts
Political webloggers, especially those running large sites like Redstate.com and DailyKos have to be on the watch for political consultants trying to create “astroturf” grassroots support:
With big corporations now hiring public relations firms to pay fake bloggers to plant favorable opinions of the businesses online, many political bloggers are concerned that candidates, too, will hire people to pretend to be grass-roots citizens expressing views.
“This is going to happen more and more, and blogs are going to have to be vigilant,” Erickson said in an interview. “I expect there will be commenters jumping in and trying to build negative campaigns to cause scandal for the other side. That’s my fear.”
The Internet has already become a prime target for such manipulation. Tom Rosenstiel , the director of Project for Excellence in Journalism , said the growing influence of political blogs, combined with the relative ease of posting negative information anonymously, make them “irresistible for dirty tricks and attack politics.”
“Candidates, history shows, will do anything they can to win. The only downside to a candidate is getting caught,” he said. But the downside for blogs could be far greater, because the blogs’ credibility rests on the idea that they represent unvarnished grass-roots opinion.
Public relations agents are attracted to the blogosphere because Web comments “can fly under the radar and have no fingerprints attached to them. They have the impression of being citizen-based and independent, and if the conditions are right, what’s in the blogs can influence the mainstream press and have a real echo effect on a campaign dialogue,” Rosenstiel said. “I think the impact is going to be that when the 2008 campaign is over, blogging may be damaged.”
This may hurt bigger community sites where it’s harder to watch the posts and comments of thousands of members. While they will remain a place for the like-minded to gather an aura of doubt could radiate from them.
As for independent webloggers and the small teams, both pro and hobbist, it’s easier for readers to watch them. And unless they get a lot of comments per post it isn’t that hard to notice someone saying something out of place.
“Political Bloggers Fear Publicists will Infiltrate Sites” [via memeorandum]
