Bimber (part deux)

One of the points that most interested me in the second half of Bimber was his conclusion regarding postbureaucratic forms of political organization having a limited scope because they "lack the capacity to project political influence over time" (193). This comes as a direct result of the abundance of information available via the Internet and other technologies, and reveals that we have certainly not evolved past the need for some of the features of previous information revolutions, including oh-so-old-fashioned word-of-mouth, thus reinforcing the trend for what has been the vase for political communication for decades before. Doesn't seem like as much of a "true" revolution any more...

As a strat. comm. major within the J-school, I think it is fascinating to acknowledge that technology is growingly able to re-create these earlier features in the commercial venue via e-newsletters, coupon programs, or online sweepstakes to collect information about consumers. The consumers are encouraged (or sometimes required) to enter information about some of their friends in order to reap various benefits, and as a result, the "ad" is more trusted, having come from a friend. This has been found to be a very effective and trendy direction for advertising to go, as the onslaught of advertising in our lives leaves us searching for this facade of trust and legitimacy.

Although this trend may bode well economically and has a good reach, I think it also reflects some other concerns that Bimber has, such as fragmentation and the information divide. If one does not have regular access to the Internet, they cannot explore these sorts of sites. Equality is certainly a major issue here, even more so for the political realm Bimber focuses on than the commercial realm.