Rosen and Hodder on Blogging, Political Conventions, and Journalism

I've written a couple of pieces on bloggers at the political conventions (Blogging the Political Conventions and Major Broadcast Networks to Decrease Convention Coverage - Author Experiences Schadenfreude). I still stand by my conclusion that:

Blogs at conventions might be as dull and un-newsworthy as the mainstream press at a convention, but it would be hard for them to be worse. We will have to see whether blogs can avoid the pitfalls of the mainstream media, the jury is out.

However, to really get a much deeper understanding of what the political conventions are, why they are that way, and how the mass media and political parties have gotten themselves into their current mess, you really must read Jay Rosen's definitive exploration of these issues on PressThink (Convention Coverage is a Failed Regime and Bloggers Have Credentials). Here is but a taste (read the whole thing):

No one knows what a political convention actually is, anymore, or why it takes 15,000 people to report on it. Two successive regimes for making sense of the event have collapsed; a third has not emerged. That's a good starting point for the webbloggers credentialed in Boston. No investment in the old regime and its ironizing. The blogs come at this fresh. I'm going.

Although it isn't directly about the conventions, Mary Hodder has more insightful things to say about the relationship between blogging and journalism on Napsterization (It's a Form of Social Media: Blogging AND Journalism). She's right, as usual.