- Cambodian-based cartoonist John Weekes, who I met a few years ago and who reads my blogs, noticed that getting blogs shortlisted for the Weblog Awards was fairly easy and submitted both peteashton.com and Created in Birmingham for the Best UK Blog award. They got in.
- When he informed me of this I was grateful for the thought but, to be honest, my heart sunk a bit. I didn’t really want to play this game. But since CiB is currently Chris Unitt’s baby it was up to him what he did with it. More about my thoughts on this here.
- Having been watching various awards ceremonies as part of his CiB duties Chris had come to the conclusion that they don’t hurt and could even be beneficial for a blog like CiB so decided to give it a go. When voting commenced he started spreading the word
- Since CiB has been serving a specific community for two years and actively getting it connected there was a reasonable base ready to jump in and vote. As such CiB got a healthy head start in the poll.
- It turned into a two horse race with the other horse being Melanie Phillips, columnist for the Daily Mail, blogger on the Spectator’s site and regular on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze. Phillips is a controversial figure – you either think she’s great or a force for evil.
- Meanwhile, in the real world, the conflict in Gaza is exploding. Phillips is an ardent, some might say fanatical, supporter of Israel. The awards then take on a new twist. This isn’t just about CiB vs Phillips. It’s about Israel vs Hamas. A victory for Phillips is seen by some (not all, but some) as vindication for her views about that conflict.
- No-one’s quite sure where all the votes are coming from. CiB has it’s supporters (marshaled by a core team of savvy Twitter and Facebook users) and Phillips has her readers but as to who else is getting involved only the referrer logs of the Weblog Awards can tell us, and they’re not public.
- Chris, wisely, decides not to make the official CiB campaign negative and most (not all, but most) of the vocal supporters go along with this. If there’s a moral ground here then they’re going to take it. CiB wants to win because it’s good, not because it’s not Melanie Phillips.
- Chris actually has no say in how the things plays out. It’s got a life of it’s own. CiB is an unwitting tool in the global war on extremist Zionism and that’s, frankly, really weird when you think about it.
- The voting drags on for days. Some people rightly get fed up with the constant plugging on Twitter and Facebook. The race continues to be neck and neck but eventually CiB takes the lead.
- CiB’s lead is sustained through the last 24 hours and it wins by a reasonable margin. Which is nice. Chris has a badge he can stick on the sidebar and the blog got some good publicity in the city in the process. Yay.
So what is actually going on here? What are these awards anyway?
The Weblog Awards come from the world of political blogging. If it were any other blogging niche they’d be labled as such – the food blogging awards, for example – but because political bloggers are under the impression that what they do represents blogging in its purest form when their awards naturally have to include all the blogs in the world. Hence the “Best UK Blog” being predominantly comprised of political blogs, most of which you won’t have heard of unless you’re part of the political blogging community.
I have long had issues with political blogging. For a start I simply don’t like it. For me (and, yes, this is a personal opinion) blogging is about sharing ideas with a view to reaching understanding. It’s not about combative arguing. I don’t want to change people’s minds. I want to inform them of things that allow them to evolve and grow. And in turn I want to be informed of things that allow me to evolve and grow. I don’t think shouting “you’re wrong, no you’re wrong, no you’re wrong” is healthy. And yes, I’m aware there are bloggers in the political sphere who are constructive. But the general tone, in my experience, isn’t conducive. So I stay away.
I also think that letting the political bloggers claim the political ground is problematic. I guess I take the view that the personal is political. My blog is political because I sometimes talk about issues related to how I think society should work. And while I may have a left-ist bent I don’t take sides. Sure, I attack the current ruling party in Birmingham but not because they’re Conservatives. I attack them because I think they’re doing it wrong. If they were Labour I’d do the same. In fact, given the woeful quality of our elected officials in this city (in comparison to the general level of intelligence and enterprise they’re supposed to represent) I’d attack them whatever colour their rosette. The closest I’ve come to admiring a councilor has been Martin Mullaney for his engagement with the community and ability to learn (specifically on the graffiti issue) but even he falls well short on a regular basis, especially during election time when the dirty trick box is opened.
A while ago I was approached by one of the local Labour groups who had seen the Conservatives’ initiatives in blogging during their conference in Birmingham and wanted to learn more. They cited some popular right wing political blogs and asked if I’d come and talk to them about how they could match that. I replied that I’d be happy to explain to them how social media could help them to connect with and serve their constituencies. I wasn’t interested in helping them add more noise to the echo chamber of political blogging. There’s massive scope to do good and constructive things politically with blogs and social media. Those who practice what’s known as political blogging won’t or can’t do this.
I’m currently staying with my sister’s family in New Zealand. Isobel and Spike are 5 and 4 years old. They’re a few weeks into their school summer holiday and are starting to get a bit fractious in each others company. Watching them bickering, blaming, sulking if they don’t get their way, scheming, telling outright lies about each other and failing to play and share nicely reminded me of how the political blogging world tends to work. It’s childish. In Isobel and Spike’s defense they’re little children and will, hopefully, grow out of it. Political bloggers have no excuse.
All this would be fine if the political bloggers stayed in their own little world and we could just ignore them. But unfortunately the news media tends to see the blogging medium through these filters. It’s understandable. Political bloggers are good at covering the party political scene and so they’ve become part of the journalistic landscape for that sort of thing. As such the news media doesn’t see the vast majority of blogs and thinks this tiny subset is what it’s all about. This reinforces the notion within political blogging that they’re normal and so ventures like the Weblog Awards come about giving the impression that they’ve about all blogs but with an inherent systemic bias towards a minority, a bias they seem ignorant of.
And so the ad-hoc campaign team that emerged to support Created in Birmingham in the poll found themselves engaging with a form of blogging they’d never really come into contact with before. And some of them found the experience a little weird.
Shona: “I really didn’t find it digestable. Lots of vitriol, nutters, not nice.”
Anthony: “I think I’m going to have to stop reading the comments on these though, makes me depressed about how stupid some people are.”
So why bother? Well, those supporting CiB have an agenda – to show the city that community blogs like CiB are a good thing that should be supported. (That a plug appeared on the Birmingham City Council website is an example of why this is all worth while.) And there’s also, for some people, a desire to show that a blog that has a supportive community, that encourages sharing, collaboration, communication and which doesn’t take sides in a partisan way is way better than some single issue, ranting, divisive megaphone in the echo chamber. In short, it would be a crime if we allowed Melanie Phillips to crow about how her blog is Teh Bestest In Teh Country when, to be frank, the idea of there being a “best” blog is really rather silly.
To recap, then:
- My opinions about political blogging are my own. They’re not intended to be gospel, just based on what I’ve seen since the niche emerged post 9/11.
- It’s obviously a lot more complicated than this. I’m just trying to give it some context.
- Political bloggers are people, therefore some of them will be lovely folks trying to do good things. I’m not attacking them personally. I just resent that their niche is seen as the definition of “what blogging is.”
- I don’t think you can define “what blogging is.”
- The organisers of The Weblog Awards do a marvelous job running it every year. I envy their dedication and skill in pulling it off. It’s a fantastically successful operation. I just feel it shouldn’t be called The Weblog Awards. It should be called The Political Blogging Awards, for that’s what it is.
As for me, I’m glad we beat her. Melanie Phillips represents something rotten and evil in British society, not for her views (which are as valid as any views) but for the way she goes about disseminating them. The target here wasn’t just her but that whole sector of the media (Daily Mail, Express, Times, etc) that makes me ashamed to be British and which poisons the heart of our nation. For me, personally, this was a battle against the forces of badness. That something I created won that battle makes me very happy indeed and makes me think maybe we can win the bigger war and make the world a better place. And then I wake up.
And now it’s all over it’s time to move on and get back to doing the good stuff we like doing. Thank god.
I like your analysis.
An interesting and useful analysis. I am pleased that CiB won the award for the hard work that has gone into making it what is after just two years. Well done!
Good analysis Pete, and even one of my tweets in there.
Your right in the sense that I don’t expose myself to political blogs and that coming across Melanie’s introduced me to a readership I couldn’t relate to. It was full of conspiracy theorists and it reminded me of all the 9/11 stuff that’s banded about, and I’ve spent hours online, watching the documentaries, reading alternative theories etc. not that I have a problem with any of that, it’s important to have counter arguments etc available.
I think I took exception to the fact that I believed some of her faithful didn’t understand the reach the CiB community had. Coupled with her post stirring up emotions with indications of foul play. I suppose I look at the amount of votes CiB acquired and thought it was plausible that through our tweeting, requests of re-tweets, blog posts, personal voting etc that the figure was plausible. Despite losing a few followers along the way, I was able to convey and convince a good chunk of followers to support CiB. It boils down to the fact I disagreed and took exception to her following who were unable to comprehend that something like CiB could be classed as good and that “dark arts” were at play. Anyway, time to move on.
I’d never even heard of Phillips blog, or any of the others there other than Guy Fawkes and yours.
As for the best in UK bloging? I think we can dismiss this as a crackpot survey.
Suggesting we put all the effort in just to beat Phillips does us a disservice. I voted as I like good Brummie stuff to win things, not because I disagree with Phillips’ views (how do you know that I or any other CIB voter don’t agree with them?).
You make some interesting points about the personal being political and in that way everything we write shows up our position in some way, whether explicitly in criticism of a party or person or in what we choose to write or not write about. You missed out my tweet to you saying that I kind of like the scrapping that political blogs offer up and that we should take time to listen to views that are at the edges. Staying too long in the middle ground is part of the problem with modern politics and we’d do well to look back at the Arts scene in this city in the mid-70s when it was way more politically active and partially, party political.
As CIB moves on again in authorship I wonder if that’s what it could do with. A bit more politics, a clearer position being taken, as an agitator for, rather than simply advocator of, the arts. As it looks around at what’s happening in Brum perhaps it should be brave enough to point out what’s lacking, or at least be up for critiquing that which doesn’t make the grade. We’re keen for this sector to have a voice (that’s why Creative Republic was invented after all) but until that voice is prepared to step outside the comfort zone it all feels a bit well, safe. We’re in danger of reflecting the current party politics in Brum, hung, bland and indecisive.
Defining the practice and culture of blogging is not easy, and I doubt that it could be usefully condensed into a single phrase, but I do think it can be usefully outlined. For example, you might capture a significant portion of what it’s about by saying ‘blogging is what you make it’, where the emphasis is on the individual and her interests. It reinforces the idea that PR blogs do not drive the blogosphere.
CiB may be a case in point, given the clear association with a named individual. While a lot of what CiB does falls into the realm of local PR, the way it is done gives CiB a higher profile than most of the other arts/creative/media PR websites in the area. Why? Possibly because there’s a feeling of participation, that elusive quality of engagement which money can’t buy. If, for example, Chris hadn’t made it a clearly stated personal mission to win the award, would the rest of us have joined in the effort? I kinda doubt it.
Back to the main point: can blogging be defined? Well, yes, sort of. And I believe you mean that it’s worth making the effort to keep it that way.
“brave enough to point out what’s lacking, or at least be up for critiquing that which doesn’t make the grade. We’re keen for this sector to have a voice (that’s why Creative Republic was invented after all) but until that voice is prepared to step outside the comfort zone it all feels a bit well, safe. We’re in danger of reflecting the current party politics in Brum, hung, bland and indecisive.”
I sort of agree Dave, but I don’t think CiB is the place to do it. If you mean telling organisations like the council or ACE or Screen WM what’s what then I think there’s a useful role in CiB “hosting” discussions so people easily make thier views know. For it to have a position – like a person or a newspaper does – would lead it to all sorts of trouble. In times when it’s allowed people to talk about things – eg. “design competitions” or “pay to play” it’s worked really well, if it had started with a position I don’t think it would have been as constructive.
For CiB to take a role in pointing out good or bad “art” is pretty much impossible — although properly done criticism is something the Brum art scene badly needs.
On the political blog front — I do tend to read the best of them, from all sides, but shy away from the comment threads, where nothing is ever changed from entrenched positions. I actually tend to read more of the right-wing ones – know your enemy and all that.
And on awards – I don’t like them, but I’d still rather good things won than bad.
I never really saw it as my place to start telling people how things should be done. Well, maybe once or twice, but CiB didn’t get where it is by trying to lead as such, it’s done it by supporting the great things people are doing and adding a concerted voice to them.
Besides, promoting the arts in this city is a big enough task in itself, and an uphill one at that. There are hundreds of things happening every week that are still overlooked without telling artists and arts orgs people what they should be doing.
However, I do agree that a critical voice is lacking I just don’t think CiB should be that voice. Actually, I had hopes for http://birminghamcounterculture.blogspot.com/ but it fizzled after a few fairly incoherent posts.
As Jon says, I think CiB can happily host/refer to discussions once they’ve been started or raise issues for the community to discuss.
Anyway, that’s all just my personal thinking on the issue. It’s Kate’s place now and she’s free to do with it as she likes.
I think people vote for a complex set of reasons. In this case I voted because:
- I think Created in Birmingham is a great blog;
- I think Created in Birmingham is much more constructive and positive than Melanie Phillips’ blog;
- Like Jon, I’d rather help good things win than watch bad things win;
- I can’t stand Melanie Phillips.
So a mess of personal, moral and political reasons drove me to vote.
Definitely there was an element of anti-Phillips-ness going on – maybe if she wasn’t in the running I would have paid more attention to the other blogs (such as Olly’s Onions, which I enjoy) – but certainly I believe that CiB won because people felt it was more deserving.
And the reason I like CiB so much is precisely because it takes a neutral political stance. I think its strength is in bringing people, art and issues, encouraging people to engage and make up their own minds through discussion. So my opinion is encourage criticism yes, but don’t lead it.
For now, yes, there is a predisposition in the electorate — not among us on the staff of the Weblog Awards, but certainly among a preponderance of our audience — to believe that a “Best Blog” must ipso facto be a political blog, and a non-political blog can only be a “Best Genre Blog” of some sort. But this is changing.
There is truth in what you say about The Weblog Awards having “come from the world of political blogging.” More particularly, it came from the world of conservative American political blogging, in 2003. But implicit in one’s having come from a place is the fact that one is no longer in that original place.
The Weblog Awards, under the governance of Kevin Aylward, has always strived to include more blogs, more categories, and more voters, from all nations and all niches and genres of blogging. Every year, our audience expands a bit further, into areas of the blogosphere removed several paces from the political realm. If we have not penetrated as far into the non-political genres as we might wish, it is not through a lack of intention. What slows this expansion is simply the rate at which bloggers everywhere learn that The Weblog Awards exist. We’re trying to spread the word here at our end.
This year, some of the finalists in the geographic categories were not political at all, though none of these won. In future years, I can easily imagine a food blog, or photo blog, or literature blog, winning “Best Blog” or “Best UK Blog.”
Note to drone on, but I forgot to mention some minutiae you might have missed in the fog of war, further evidence that the preference for political blogs is receding:
* In the Best Major Blog category, the winner was “c jane enjoy it,” a wonderful, profoundly personal, utterly non-political blog by a writer in Idaho. Placing in a close second was “Autoblog,” a blog about cars, where some politics may be mentioned insofar as cars intersect with politics (such as gasoline taxes and such), but hardly a political blog. Instapundit loped in at a distant third.
* “The Stupid Shall Be Punished” won the Best Up and Coming Blog award. This blog is by a sailor about life on a U.S. Navy submarine, and does not seem to touch upon politics except very occasionally, and even then not to argue for any position.
The two categories above are not “genre blog” polls, they were competing against any and all blogs in their size range, including political blogs. The fact that apolitical blogs won these categories shows how the appeal of The Weblog Awards is becoming more generalized.
* Meanwhile in Best Food Blog, “Cake Wrecks” walked away with 31,152 votes! This is by far more votes than any other blog earned in any category. This is significant, because it suggests that “Cake Wrecks” could have won Best Blog, if only it had been nominated. Nominating, like voting, is open to anyone in the world. Perhaps next year.
* And even among political blogs, the contests are becoming more inclusive; it is worthy of some notice than for the first time, a foreign blog has won Best Conservative Blog. How far such terms as “conservative” and “liberal” can be stretched across national borders is a thought-provoking question (and at least for me, a puzzling one). But, there it is.