We've been meaning to slow down the Club Bloggery series a little while we get busy with other research, but have found this difficult especially at a time when so many new topics present themselves. So, the latest instalment in the series went online about a week ago already, and I'm only now getting around to posting a link to it here - this time, we look at how the U.S. blogosphere is shaping up in its coverage of the current presidential primaries, and the actual election later this year.

Along with the previous one, this latest piece generated some, um, interesting responses from self-styled professional irritators Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt, and their respective cheersquads; predictably, where they ascended beyond mere ad hominems the focus of their harrumphing appeared to centre around the fact that it's possible for research into blogging to be funded - in part - by taxpayer money. (Perhaps the logic here is "hey, if even I can be a blogger this blogging business really can't be worth researching"? How refreshingly humble.) Such comments are as common in the debating arsenal of the irrational right as they are stupidly reductive, of course - if the "Surely that money should be given to research for a cure for AIDS or cancer?" argument is taken to its logical conclusion, then 'surely' nothing save two or three major projects should receive all the funding available?

I'm happy to say that Club Bloggery has returned for 2008. Club Bloggery was our weekly series for ABC Online's Opinion pages during the 2007 election campaign - and while the election is now well and truly over, Jason, Barry, and I will continue to track developments in the Australian blogosphere and beyond during 2008 (if at a slightly more relaxed pace). While I was on holidays during the second half of January, the guys already posted an article discussing the mainstream media's feeding frenzy over Heath Ledger's death (and the role of blogs in setting the record straight) - and for our second instalment, we've returned to our old stomping grounds: we're considering what role Australia's political bloggers may be able to adopt now, in the aftermath of the election.

All of our pieces will also be published - sometimes in extended versions - on our group blog at Gatewatching.org, of course, along with other reflections on citizen journalism and news blogging.

Which Way in '08?

By Jason Wilson, Axel Bruns, Barry Saunders

The blogosphere and online independent media certainly proved themselves capable of offering an outstanding alternative narrative of last year's federal election. In several pieces during the campaign, we pointed out how the bloggers had led the way in offering participatory election coverage, and how organs like Crikey and New Matilda had managed to present a refreshing range of opinion that differed from the usual suspects in the MSM.

The election may be over, but our Club Bloggery series for ABC Online continues unabated for now (if perhaps at a pace more commensurate with the impending summer holidays). This week, we take a look back in some degree of anger at the 'just kidding' defence for political stunts gone wrong, which was employed several times during the campaign. Barry, Jason, and I have now posted the article at ABC Online and on our group blog Gatewatching.

Not Funny

By Axel Bruns, Jason Wilson, and Barry Saunders

One of the most prominent recurring features of the long election campaign we've just put behind us were our politicians' and journalists' usually ill-fated moves to attempt the humour defence whenever some political stunt or statement didn't pay off.

We saw this first with Labor's star recruit Peter Garrett, who was reported to have said "once we get in, we'll just change it all" in what he was later at pains to describe as a "short and jocular" conversation with Channel Nine personality Richard Wilkins and talk radio shock jock Steve Price.

Absolutely nothing unexpected happened on the weekend. Absolutely nothing unexpected has happened since: though slow to work out which way the wind blows, Dennis Shanahan, Paul Kelly and colleagues at the former (and future?) Government Gazette have skipped nary a beat in switching to singing the praises of Kevin the Rudd. Only Glenn Milne seems to have missed the memo - he's still working on his hagiography of 'poor' Peter Costello. Oh, and Caroline Overington, of course, who is making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Two new entries for David Silver's 'Gone Gallery', then:

Just before the Australian federal election last Saturday, we managed to get our latest Club Bloggery piece out to ABC Online. It's now been eclipsed by more recent developments, of course, but still offers a pretty good overview of the campaign for (online) hearts and minds that was. Read it at our group blog Gatewatching, or at the ABC.

Scoring the e-lection

By Jason Wilson, Barry Saunders, and Axel Bruns

This close to the election, it's customary for newspapers to recommend a vote one way or the other. We're not about to do that at Club Bloggery (although we would recommend thinking about the candidate who's been more responsive and available to your community), but we can do a summary of who has made the best running on the Internet, and understood and used its possibilities best.

Jason Wilson, Barry Saunders, and I have now posted the seventh instalment of our ABC series Club Bloggery, covering the online dimensions of the Australian election campaign. Just to mix things up a bit, this week we had a look at what's been happening on YouTube over the past few weeks, and found that (perhaps unsurprisingly) the more interesting developments are in DIY campaign advertising and mash-ups. Plenty of links included with the story, which we've also posted to our group blog Gatewatching - I encourage you to see for yourselves!

Election Flops on YouTube

By Axel Bruns, Jason Wilson, and Barry Saunders

In an election campaign as drawn out as this, you'd have to have excellent memory to remember the hype around John Howard's use of YouTube to make policy announcements. Some months ago, the media were all over the story - but unfortunately for the Prime Minister, much like the widely-predicted poll 'narrowing', the YouTube effect has been missing in action.

That's not to say that YouTube and similar sites haven't played a role in the campaign - but certainly not to the extent they've already featured in the U.S. presidential primaries, where debates between the candidates on either side of the political divide have invited citizens to pose their questions via YouTube, and where some politicians even announced their intention to run for President on the site.

Digital Media and Democracy:
Tactics in Hard Times

I'm very happy that a few of the articles and chapters I've worked on throughout the year are now coming close to publication. One of them is a chapter in Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, a book edited by Megan Boler for MIT Press; my contribution is based on one of my papers for the AoIR conference last year and explores the possibilities for citizen journalism beyond the tactical moment, as it transcends the industrial journalism/citizen journalism two-tier structure first described (though not exactly in those terms) by Herbert Gans so many years ago. Will citizen journalism remain tactical, and thus perhaps excuse itself from attempting to exert a more permanent, strategic influence on public life? Will it 'sell out' and go mainstream? Or is there a third, hybrid option which retains its strengths as a bottom-up movement while developing more permanent, sustainable forms?

My suggestion in the chapter (which I've called "Gatewatching, Gatecrashing: Futures for Tactical News Media") is that we may see a development of citizen journalism that's not unlike the trajectory charted by the evolution of extra-parliamentary opposition groups in 1970s Europe into credible political alternatives (and here especially the Greens parties). As a German, the obvious case in point for me is the career of Joschka Fischer from street protester to German Foreign Minister, ultimately commanding grudging respect even from old political enemies - and in citizen journalism, I think we're beginning to see the potential for similar transformations. In the chapter, I do go so far as to call OhmyNews' founder Oh Yeon-ho "the South Korean Joschka Fischer of journalism", though with tongue in cheek - guess you'll have to wait for the book to come out to see whether you agree with me on that one. It's now listed for pre-order on Amazon.

We've now published the next instalment of our Club Bloggery series at ABC Online and on our Gatewatching group blog. After four long weeks of the election campaign proper, and many more months of pre-election scuffles, this time we couldn't hold back any more and finally decided to 'go' The Australian for its atrociously partisan and misleading coverage of the election. And from the comments the piece has received on the ABC site and elsewhere, it looks like we're not the only ones to think so... Kudos to the ABC subbies, who found the appropriate image to go with an article titled "Jumping the Shark"!

Jumping the Shark

By Jason Wilson, Axel Bruns, and Barry Saunders

Collectively, the writers here at Club Bloggery have been watching the Australian political blogosphere for years. We know that the bloggers who have perhaps been most important and prominent down under are psephologists - specialist electoral statisticians who try to understand and analyse polls, and consider the interlocking numbers games of electoral politics.

The next instalment of our Club Bloggery series for ABC Online is now up. As always, we've posted a slightly longer version of the article on our group blog Gatewatching, in addition to the ABC article itself. Here's an excerpt:

Digging Deeper

By Jason Wilson, Barry Saunders, and Axel Bruns

Climate change dominated a couple of days of Federal Election campaigning earlier this week, with the major parties both fumbling in laying out their responses. Peter Garrett and Malcolm Turnbull were punished by the mainstream media for, respectively, revealing something approximating a real opinion about how climate change agreements should work, and for being involved in a debate about Government policy before it's implemented.

The fourth instalment of our Club Bloggery series for ABC Online has now been published. Given all the controversy, we couldn't go past adding our own thoughts about the 'worm' incident which has taken up so much of the media limelight following the leaders' debate last week. Our piece has already been published on the ABC site, where it has also generated a good deal of sometimes heated debate; on the Gatewatching group blog with Jason Wilson and Barry Saunders, I've now also posted a slightly longer and more polemic version of the article.

Bloggers Watch as Journalists Turn on Each Other over Worm

By Axel Bruns, Jason Wilson, and Barry Saunders

In spite of the growing evidence of the role of bloggers like Possums Pollytics and citizen journalism projects like our own Youdecide2007 as alternative commentators and opinion leaders in the federal election campaign, mainstream media from print to television remain crucial, of course. Indeed, the two are anything but mutually exclusive, and so - along with 2.4 million other viewers across the three channels broadcasting it - bloggers tuned in on Sunday to watch the 'great debate' between John Howard and Kevin Rudd.

Though not necessarily adopting the yoga pose of one of the ABC's debate watchers, Australian bloggers looked to a number of their own strengths in order to survive suffering through what at times appeared a rather stilted, formulaic contest between the two candidates for the top job; many leading Australian blogs provided live blog coverage of the event, offering a blow-by-blow, distributed running commentary as the debate was aired.