What do we believe as a blogging community? Do we share any common values? Here's my first, brief stab at political philosophy of the blogosphere.

Every good communist should know that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
-Mao Tse Tung

Power grows from the barrel of a blog.

Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.
- A.J. Liebling or H.L. Mencken

Blogs give you the publishing ability of the press, if not their marketing budget 

"The ballot is stronger than bullets."
-Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

My links are my votes of attention.

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
-Abraham Lincoln

Give him a blog. Test his words against his actions.

"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
-John Stuart Mill

Every voice is precious.

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind."
-Rudyard Kipling

Written before radio and television. Critical thinking. More vital than ever.

"Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life."
-Andrew Brown

I have no idea what he's talking about. Nope. Not me. Nuh uh.

"Money is the most egalitarian force in society. It confers power on whoever holds it."
-Roger Starr

Blogging may be the next most egalitarian force.

"To be a revolutionary you have to be a human being. You have to care about people who have no power."
-Jane Fonda

Journalists write on behalf of the public. Bloggers write on their own behalf. Giving someone a blog is like teaching them to fish.

"The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity."
-James Fenimore Cooper

Mediocre is fine, if you're authentic.

"In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects."
-J. W. Fulbright

You own your words in blogspace. Threads of argument and debate stand on their own. 

In Meme We Trust. Karma and social effects assure important ideas, especially unpopular ones, are heard and recorded.  

Perhaps someone with a polysci background can help organize this. What are the important questions a political philosophy attempts to answer?

I'm learning too much as I bootstrap my audioblog. Everything from cabling, microphone types, and software and hardware configuration. I haven't started on content yet, or post-production. I'm happily over my head. But I gotta ask...

What literacy do you need to blog? To blog well? To mediablog well?

What is "Good blogging?"

My short list:

• Persistence and frequency
• Stringing ideas together using words
• Writing in a way that engages
• Context, lots of context
• Themes
• Voice
• Authority / Sincerity

It's incomplete. What's on your list?

What knowledge, skills and abilities does a good blogger need?

Given that description of "good blogging":

• Understanding the medium
• Mastery of blogging tools
  • Installing
  • Formatting
  • Tweaking
  • Updating
  • Backing up 
  • Working with ISPs and hosting 
• Ability to write well
  • Self assignment: able to pick topics that fit the medium and the blogger
  • Writing for the web
  • Writing persuasively
  • Tech-writing skills, if writing to inform
  • Mechanical skill: able to conform writing to conventions accepted by your audience. Strunk and White for some readership, eminem for others, and Dogma 2000 for others.
• Willingness to participate
• Laws and etiquette: libel, ownership, citation, etc.

What is richer media?

I'm referring to the content being created. In ascending richness:

1. Words
2. Pictures
3. Sound
4. Video
5. Software/Interactive Objects

What is "good blogging" in richer media?

That's the billion dollar question.

My short list :

• Persistence and frequency
• Stringing ideas together using words and other media
• Communicating in a way that engages
• Context, lots of context
• Themes
• Voice
• Authority / Sincerity 

What knowledge, skills and abilities does a good mediablogger need?

I don't know. Let's ask people who:

• meet newspaper deadlines
• teach
• facilitate meetings
• tell stories
• make stage performances
• make live radio
• make movies
• make news programs
• make documentaries
• make novels and short stories
• make audio books.

The body of knowledge is wide. Look at the above list of rich-media folks. Most have subdisciplines, guilds of specialists. Here are some of the job titles from Spielberg's Artificial Intelligence movie:

• Film Editor
• Cinematographer

  Step 37. Check your makeup before you blog.

• Lighting technician
• Audio engineer
• Audio designers
• Casting
• Production design
• Art direction
• Set direction
• Costume design
• Makeup 
• Hair
• Production manager
• Director, Assistant Director, DGA trainee

The body of knowledge is deep. Those are broad occupational categories. My dad was an NBC News and Fox Movietone "sound man" in the early 1960s; did everything audio in field recording for radio, televion, and newsreels. Just look at the AI sound department's job titles forty years' later:

Additional sound re-recording mixer, ADR editor, ADR mixer, ADR recordist, ADR supervisor, assistant ADR editor, assistant dialogue editor, assistant engineer, assistant music editor, assistant sound designer, assistant sound effects editor, assistant sound engineer, audio engineer, boom operator, boom operator: blue screen, dialogue editor, digital editorial services, digital sound transferer, engineering services, foley artist, foley editor, foley mixer, foley recordist, house sound, machine room operator, music editor, music scoring mixer, re-recording engineer, scoring crew, scoring stage manager, scoring stage technician, sound designer, sound effects editor, sound effects recordist, sound mix technician, sound mixer, sound mixer: blue screen, sound post-production assistant, sound recordist, sound re-recording mixer, supervising sound editor, sound re-recordist, sound technician, supervising assistant sound editor, supervising music editor, supervising sound editor, video services.

A long list. Don't even glance at the special effects department.

The music editor has different skills than the sound editor. Different talents too. They know how they fit in the moviemaking process. And they know the skills those roles need.

The medium matters. This work changes by medium. Each type of content, each medium has its own life cycles, from inspiration to closure.

Some media are live, others are Memorex (synch or asynch). This affects how many people are involved, the kinds of risks taken and managed, the project life cycle, and the tools of the trade.

Each medium carries its own vocabularies, grammars, conventions. They play against each other but you have to know what works. Cinema, news, music, journalism, theater, and graphic design have huge legacies and institutions going back hundreds of years. We will pull from each to compose the mediablogging body of knowledge. We barely understand the text blogging medium; mediablogging poses entirely new challenges.   

Software and web services as media. You may debate if software components are a type of content, but it's happening now and spreading. Just look at the flash animation-of-the-day sites.  Blog streams of software may be as simple as a screensaver-of-the-day, as dry as the flow of résumés across a recruiter's desk, or a new car or weapon for your Grand Theft Auto game.

Cheaper, better, faster media tech pours across the land.

Mediablogging talent and expertise... that'll take longer, will take cultivation and evolution.  

Mediablogging for Dummies, anyone?

 [a klog apart: klogs]