Bob Collins: I'm growing to hate this word: "blogosphere"

Check out Bob Collins's interesting reflections on the evolving role of blogs in politics. Collins is the senior editor for online news at Minnesota Public Radio and coordinated MPR's political coverage in the 1990s. Collins also blogs as Polinaut, and he has piped up in this blog's comment section.

One of the real tensions right now in the political universe is a clash of cultures between people whose goal it is to control the message (aided and abetted by an only-too-willing media, by the way) and a medium that cannot be controlled.

I know that many politicians and their campaigns read blogs, so chew on this idea: this week, visit your favorite blog, and ENGAGE. Visit the ones you don't like, the ones that are saying bad things about you (go to the source) and ENGAGE. Just to see what happens.

What Collins does not explain very well is why he is growing to hate the word "blogosphere." It sounds to me that it's not the blogosphere itself that he hates, it's just the term "blogosphere."

POLITICS