Now I will be first to admit that the Blogosphere does contains some very strange characters with some very strange views on things. You can think of it as the democratisation of mental illness as it allows anyone who can type to expound to all and sundry their vision of the world.
At the same time it has radically reengineered the way that campaigns are fought and news is disseminated across the world. Blogs almost always get the breaking news out first with the main stream media struggling to catch up hours or days later. My area of interest is climate science (big intake of breath by all, no surely not, not CLIMATE) and this is one area where the blogosphere has been used to great effect to debunk some of the most crass and blatant distortions of the truth I have seen in many years.
Why is the blogosphere so influential? Well for a start the costs of entry are very, very small. If you have a bee in your bonnet about something then you can set up a blog about the subject very quickly. If this is an area where there are lots of other interested parties then you may soon find yourself with quite a web readership and by definition in quite an influential position in the very area you are interested in.
If no one is interested your blog withers on the vine, if it strikes a chord then you attract readers and you are up and running.
One good example is Steve MacIntyre’s ClimateAudit.org blog. He has been a thorn in the side of the more “ethically flexible” parts of the climate science community for many years. He simply refuses to lie down and his influence comes almost exclusively from his ability to communicate with an educated and motivated readership via his blog. In past times, pre-blogs what could he have done to get his views across? Not much. The establishment could have silenced him very easily. Regardless of your view as to the veracity of his case you must admit that the fact that he has a platform, which costs very little, but can take on the might and resources of the UN is pretty impressive.
RealClimate is another good example from the other side of the debate. It is a very effective information distributor and largely set up to counter MacIntyre. This in itself is an acknowledgement by the establishment that the fight has moved out of the dusty halls and into the wilds of the blogosphere.
People now speak of peer-to-peer review of science rather than peer- review. Peer to peer being the review of science by a wide community of educated and well informed bloggers and not just other scientists. I think this is a great way forward and will lead to much more open, and critically useful, discussion of science in all areas.
Regardless of you viewpoint you should be very happy that an active blogosphere is there and stands ready to challenge the establishment view of the world and to drag the mighty down from their ivory towers and engage with the little people (that you and me by the way).
