Like:
I really enjoy this political blog for the following reasons:
1. It’s written from a left-central (a little more left than central) point of view, which I personally identify well with – yes I realize this is a ‘preaching to the congregation’ kind of effect, but it does not take away from the fact that I find it a more enjoyable read than, say, the Tea Party Nation blog;
2. It categorizes and colour-codes its posts;
3. Elaborating on reason 2, it’s generally very visually appealing: lots of pictures and videos breaking up portions of text;
4. The font is of a large-enough-to-be-read-easily, small-enough-to-be-professional size;
5. The actual content of the posts is relevant, up-to-date, and covers a wide range of topics;
6. The tone of voice is relatively moderate and unbiased, often presenting varying points of view (as opposed to extremely liberal/ conservative/ or focusing on a singular, particular stance);
7. The writing style is concise yet personable, and is very informative while retaining a level of conversationally; and
8. It is interactive, by allowing individuals to post on the sidelines of each post (via social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc).
The success of this blog speaks for itself; it has over 70,000 likes on Facebook, and 106,000 followers on Twitter. In an age where the ‘cool’ thing to do is to be apathetic about politics, this is a noteworthy audience. Putting aside the fact that I am probably representative of Think Progress’ ideal demographic, characteristics 3 – 8 can be more generally applicable to my idea of what a ‘good’ political blog is.
Hate:
After my initial scan of the blog, the only reaction I had was: What is going on????
I am hoping that this blog is a joke. Everything from the ridiculous content and overly colloquial language to the lacklustre presentation with no visuals of any sort makes me, first, appalled, and, then, disgusted by this blog. Given that it is already hard for me to take any anarchist seriously, it doesn’t help that he consistently undermines himself in his posts *i.e. when he titles something:
WHY “RENEWABLE” SOURCES OF ENERGY DON’T WORK IN THE REAL WORLD
and then writes an update saying:
“Update: This may have potential. (OK, that was pretty shocking. I’m sorry I didn’t offer more resistance. Etc.)”
He exhibits a lot of the same characteristics of ‘bad writing’ that we talked about in class, and fails in all of my criteria for good blogging (#3- 8 above). I don’t think I could have found a better example of a bad blog; honest, it’s worth taking a look it if only for the entertainment value…