techPresident - Valdis Krebs - Comments

Conservatives have been reading Alinsky for years...

Jim Eltringham — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:37:17 -0400

This is an interesting demonstration of a trend, but conservatives - especially campus organizers - have been reading Rules for Radicals for a long time. (When I worked as a campus organizer several years ago, and I can't even count how many copies of that I gave to conservative students.)

Much of the messaging and organizational structure of 1960s-era campus organization was cribbed by conservatives by the 1990s in the face of the anti-free speech/political correctness movement.

I don't think we disagree

Micah L. Sifry — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:42:30 -0500

Valdis--

Great to hear from you. As you know, I am a big fan of your work.

I don't think we disagree. I am not saying that activists should pay such close attention to the mainstream media, but that it appears they do because they believe the media is the one institution that can have meta-effects on local conversations. Or rather, its output is the one most visible aspect of the millions of micro-conversations that people are actually having around the election--and activists are attracted to the high-intensity conversations generated by news reporting as opposed to the long tail of water-cooler conversation that most people actually pay attention to.

It may very well be that your mantra is right: "it's the close conversations" that matter most in affecting individual voting decisions, far more than whatever frames the MSM attempts to place over the course of the election.

national network vs. local network

orgnet — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:22:40 -0500

Micah, thanks for the post, the links, and the nice feedback. Yet, I think we disagree on this one point...

"Um, I think this is why so many activists play such close attention to the power of the mainstream media, as it is still the primary network that "binds" us together around elections."

I really don't care what is happening in the national network, but I do care what my local social network is thinking. If I were to ever vote for American Idol, I don't care what the rest of Ohio or the nation are doing. I do care what the people in my family room are thinking or those on-line at the moment who are discussing this vote with me. In other words, "friends & family" matter in my vote, but strangers don't. Same holds true for government elections.

I stick by my 2004 political mantra -- "it's the conversations, stupid"... but update it to be more precise: it's the [close]conversations, stupid. "close" can be physical or emotional or social distance... the biggest affect is when all 3 are combined.