After recently reading the book Bloggers on the Bus by Eric Boehlert I feel I have a greater understanding of the importance of social media in the world today. The first thing people usually think of when thinking about social media is Twitter and Facebook and those other websites mostly dedicated to high school kids reconnecting with their friends they just saw 2 hours ago.
The political blog network is an immense construct of up-and-coming writers and seasoned political analysts and commentators all meeting in one huge forum. The beauty is that so many people of different backgrounds are able to exchange ideas (although I believe a whole lot of selective exposure is at play in this world).
Just like everything else in the world though there are winners and losers and event the slightest slip up can cause someone their tumultuous downfall from blog stardom. In my recent book review of Eric Boehlert’s book I mentioned the story of Joe Anthony, a young writer that was thrown under the political bus of the Obama campaign when constructing a MySpace fan page and was told to surrender his rights to the page or they would commandeer it, which they eventually did. Although its sad that the young man never saw a dime for his hard work, the worst came when he began getting trashed on the political blogs. Like I said, there’s winners and losers. Joe lost, Obama won.
Overall, I was more than satisfied with my selection of this book. I learned a great deal about the Internet and also was able to add some new tabs to my favorite websites. If given a chance I would recommend all those with the slightest interest in politics and social media to give this book a shot.
