The New Political Blogosphere

Abstract

This article discusses the current epistemological status of the political blogosphere, in light both of the concerns raised by Alvin Goldman in his 2008 paper “The Social Epistemology of Blogging” and the recent drastic changes in the structure of the blogosphere. I argue that the political blogosphere replicates epistemically beneficial functions of the mainstream media for the functioning of democracy, and defend this claim from objections to the blogosphere that have been levelled by Goldman and Richard Posner. I then provide an expanded defence of the political blogosphere in response to these particular objections.

Keywords:

• Social Epistemology
• Blog
• Democracy

Notes

[1] See http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.

[2] See http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein.

[3] See http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/.

[4] I wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for pushing me to articulate this point.

[5] See http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/.

[6] See http://www.huffingtonpost.com.