HW3: Political Influences

Summary and response to David Kline’s essay pages 3-24.

The chapter opens with two examples of blogs concerning the topic of influence on political campaigns. The blogs are opposites of each other and set a great example of how they encourage polarization and can be very extreme rather than up for debate or understanding. One of them favors the use of blogs and claims the rest of the media lies and the other believes the media is a much stronger source and more influential to campaigning. The rest of the chapter tends to be a little biased in favor of blogs. Kline claims that media tends to lie and is a poor source to receive certain information from. He also states the importance that blogs have toward political campaigning. During the elections in 2004, political blogs were viewed by millions of people and had a historical impact on their opinions. I believe there is still some debating to be done. Blogs certainly have potential to impact political campaigning more then the media because it may be a more reliable source. However, as of now I don’t think this is happening. Many people still don’t even know what a blog is or that they even exist. The papers, magazines, and televisions are things that are seen everyday by everyone and therefore they have a much greater chance to influence the people even if they do lie.