Does this mean that our views are not important? Does this mean that the things we write are not relevant to the political and social situation in America?
What is an Astroturf blog? Wikipedia's definition is:
In politics and advertising, the term astroturfing describes formal public relations (PR) campaigns that seek to create the impression of being a spontaneous, grassroots behavior. Hence the reference to the "AstroTurf" (artificial grass) is a metaphor to indicate "fake grassroots" support.
I can see cracking down on fake blogs. My blog was quoted with another, probably fake, blog last week in the Washington Post article by Howard Kurtz. The potentially fake blog, "Political Retch", has very little information. At least the creator had the wherewithal to make a second posting - just as inflammatory as the first - to try to legitimize his (Bobby G.'s) place in the blog world. I was not proud to be in the same article with him.
But as for new bloggers like myself, don't brush us off. We see the potential of this medium to reach the millions who wander into cyberspace for up to date information - not really trusting the main stream media. Since we are local entities, our influence may not be national ( unless we get lucky and get national attention like I did). We have strong opinions, and most of us are intelligent and very articulate.
Take heed. New bloggers are real grassroots, not Astroturf.
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