An interesting article but I have to part ways with Point #5:

stevenberlinjohnson.com: Five Things All Sane People Agree On About Blogs And Mainstream Journalism (So Can We Stop Talking About Them Now?): "5. Blogs -- like all modes of contemporary media -- are not historically unique; they draw upon and resemble a number of past traditions and forms, depending on their focus."

Yes and no. Yes in that, citizen journalism is nothing new. No, in that it's never had this kind of reach before. In the Soviet Union, it was called Samizdat. You had to distribute it by hand and it was very risky. The reach was limited to people you could trust or people they trusted.

Now, the world is different. This post can be read by anyone with an internet connection anywhere on the globe (assuming they read English). Censors are cirumvented by free applications that foil attempts to stop reader. In China, there have been reports that cell phones in cameras are having a dramatic affect on conditions in western China. The government hired thugs can no longer beat or abuse people with impunity. Cell phone pictures make their way east very quickly. I read one post that claimed a riot was quelled from Party Headquarters very shortly after it started. They didn't want the bad press and didn't want it to get out of hand (I annot find the link now, if I do, I'll update).

That's a far cry from Thomas Paine. Information in modern society is much harder to control than ever before. It's not going to get any easier. The rise of P2P communications and networking is only going to increase and the censors are either going to cast their nets too wide and frustrate their legitimate users and hamper their abililty to keep pace in the world, or are going to be consumed by ever increasing resources needed to catch all the sites and information that fall through the cracks.

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