CNN Opinion: Why the web benefits liberals more than conservatives

[Ichingcarpenter]

Now, research out of Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society suggests that the reason behind this imbalance may be the liberal belief system itself.

Liberals, the research finds, are oriented toward community activism, employing technology to encourage debate and feature user-generated content. Conservatives, on the other hand, are more comfortable with a commanding leadership and use restrictive policies to combat disorderly speech in online forums.

All of this suggests that the internet may benefit liberals more often than conservatives -- at least for now.
The different approaches of the top two political blogs may illustrate the correlation between ideology and online strategy.

The Huffington Post's closest conservative competitor, Hotair.com, has only a fraction of its audience size and is tightly controlled by an inner circle of three authors.
A leading right-wing blog, Hot Air was founded by Michelle Malkin, an author who is known for her support of wartime loyalty oaths and racial profiling as a defense against terrorism. In criticizing Obama's 2009 address to the United Nations, she said, "he solidified his place in the international view as the great appeaser and the groveler in chief."
Indeed, Malkin's hard-line national security views are matched by Hotair's unusually restrictive comment policy. The site permits comments only by registered users; currently, registration is closed to any new users. The site states, "We may allow as much or as little opportunity for registration as we choose, in our absolute discretion, and we may close particular comment threads or discontinue our general policy of allowing comments at any time."

By contrast, the left-leaning Huffington Post, the most visited blog on the Internet, has thousands of bloggers and invites active users to become featured authors and comment facilitators.

Founder Arianna Huffington herself supported working diplomatically with the international community to deal with Saddam Hussein and recently endorsed Jeremy Rifkin's book "The Empathic Civilization," which she says "allows humanity to see itself as an extended family living in a shared and interconnected world."


More at link
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/05/31/liberals.conservatives.online/index.html?hpt=C2

[MindandSoul]

1. Because liberals can spell????

[ixion]

4. Exactly. Spell... and read

[Kolesar]

5. With the release of her new book, Sarah Palin has now written more books than she has read

...stolen joke...

[Puzzler]

2. "The liberal approach does seem to have its advantages?"

You mean stuff like open debate?

[vi5]

3. But the internet also offers a negative...

..which is that it provides a veneer of credibility to any yahoo who can set up a blogger account. A lot of what is good about the internet (open debate, community, etc.) also has exponentially magnified and exacerbated the "....this side says...while the other side says" connundrum that plagues us and modern "journalism as a whole.

"I mean yes, Huffington Post or Talking Points Memo may have this or that thoroughly researched article that exposes this horrible situation perpetrated by this or that republican person/place/policy.....but on the other hand, Charlie Cheeto Fingers a right wing blogger says that Nancy Pelosi eats small babies. So as you can see, there are two sides to this debate."

[ejpoeta]

6. i think the internet is more liberal for a couple of reasons.

despite the monacher of liberal media, the msm is decidedly not liberal, so people like us need somewhere to go and the internet is a good choice for that.

another reason may be a lot of the teabaggers may not have access to broadband. they may only have dial up if they have access at all. or perhaps they have no interest in using the google to actually look up anything they are told to make sure that it is true and not something glen beck just made up.

[pretzel4gore]

7. CNN is a goddam liar

that's the gist of it, and anything them rightwing punks say is bull. CNN is a criminal run organization. See junyer bush, war against Iraq, 1.2 million dead, gulf oil spill etc

[jmondine]

8. Because we can find the "any" key

[hvn_nbr_2]

9. Because conservatives control 5.75 of the 6 "news" networks

The web is the only place for liberals to go.

[Mr. Sparkle]

10. Republicans are sheeple, who knew! n/t

[fatbuckel]

11. Well,you know reality has a liberal slant to it.