Blogs open the doors of politics to everyone, writes Bakersfield Californian newspaper columnist Vic Pollard:
Millions of people who probably would never relate to politics and politicians in the traditional way have found ways to connect to it through the Internet.
Through blogs, streaming audio and video, e-mail networks and even YouTube and MySpace, people are discussing and understanding politics and politicians on their own terms for the first time. And they're finding it a lot more interesting and engaging than many of them thought it would be.
"Politics is fueled by gossip and late-breaking information, and blogs make that a lot more accessible," said Steven Maviglio, communications director for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles. "In some cases, it's somebody sitting at the end of their bed in pajamas on a keyboard and in other cases it's journalists doing it in more traditional ways, but they are all contributing to the process."
And in turn, those New Media and the people who use them are having a profound effect on politics and politicians.
"It's a complete revolution," said Dan Brennan, communications chief for state Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield. "It's all being completely redone. The traditional media is probably on its way out. While that's going on, you basically have everybody contributing to the whole process so everybody becomes an amateur publisher."
State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, said -- in an e-mail answer to a question for this column -- "I think there is a real value to the abundant access to information made possible through blogs and sites like YouTube. I see these as informal conversations" with constituents.
Read the whole thing.
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