First Amendment Community
Mar 16th, 2008 by Rob
Thus far, Shall Make No Law has primarily been devoted to reporting First Amendment-related news and providing contextual analysis of this news. Going forward, if I had the time and the resources, I would like to take steps to amplify the community aspect of the blog—take it beyond its role as a news digest and make an effort to attract the types of discussions that currently exist on the First Amendment issues happening on a daily basis.
Despite an enormous interest in the subject (especially within the online world), few existing blogs host well-maintained and vibrant discussion forums that would certainly be welcomed by regular readers of my site. In addition to reporting on the latest developments—from court decisions to protests to political speeches—Shall Make No Law will take the issues to the base audience that is most eager to discuss them, beyond the standard hyperlinks and comments sections (which tend to draw just 10-20 responses even on more established blogs).
My main goal for SMNL is to expand its profile by making it more accessible. Sure, people like to respond to controversial news stories, but as it is now, these stories do not directly reach out and encourage readers to reply. I need to boost my efforts to accomplish a more active environment.
The First Amendment is a heavily debated topic online, and it has inspired a very active community of bloggers and experts who report on and argue about issues relating to it. The defining characteristic of this blogging “community” is its fragmented reach over the entire online world—it difficult to even define it as a community because it would never be considered a self-contained niche of interest to only a select few.
Rather, the First Amendment debate is staged from within tens of thousands of blogs, many of which have no special theme or focus other than the author’s daily musings. This is what makes the community so dynamic: It’s impossible to make an exhaustive list of all active First Amendment bloggers, so the cast of characters is always changing.
The chart below is an attempt to visualize what the complex interconnections within the community might look like. The small brown circles represent mainstream news sources (the New York Times, the AP, etc.), and the colored circles represent various blogs that link and respond to these news items. I’ve selected a few of the major First Amendment-related blogs, and placed them on the grid nearest the major subjects they cover (free speech, free press, etc.).
The smaller colored circles represent the thousands of blogs that are similar to the ones I’ve named explicitly. The sites that mostly function as news aggregators rather than blogs (such as the First Amendment Center’s constantly updated page of links) are tied directly to the news items and are less dependent on active dialog with the network of other independent blogs.
This chart essentially serves as a map of how Shall Make No Law can best serve its community in the future. Ideally, the site would fall in the upper-middle portion of the chart, within reach of all five First Amendment freedoms as well as a balance of mainstream and blog-network sourcing. In order to solidify the site’s position among this network, it will be important to ramp up the active stream of communication between all blogs that share common interests (even those with vastly different stances on the issues).
Here are my major goals and ideas for improvements to Shall Make No Law in the short and long terms:
- Provide an active Forums section that has prominent placement on the main site, which allows readers to stay actively engaged with the site between posts and updates
- Feature a regular Point-Counterpoint column with regular or rotating commentators on First Amendment-related issues and news. This could be a weekly feature, set up on the main site but clearly separate from standard posts. It would be formatted as a back-and-forth exchange, with concise paragraphs outlining each expert’s opinion. This section could eventually expand to include debates between regular readers with informed views on the latest developments.
- Enhance the multimedia aspects of the site by including more audio interviews and infographics. Personally I find it much easier to digest information when it’s not presented as a block of text. I thought my interview with First Amendment Center Director Gene Policinski was a positive step forward in initiating the type of media that could be embraced to new visitors stopping by the site.
- Expand my own efforts, in the capacity as the site’s owner, to spark discussion with authors of other blogs sharing an interest in the First Amendment. Although, as noted in the Community Profile section, the First Amendment debate exists almost predominately among blogs with more general focuses (even on comments sections of mainstream media websites such as the Chicago Tribune’s), making a genuine effort to respond to posts on major Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press websites is the first step in building a core of regular readers.
With these improvements, SMNL can establish itself as a solid community within the larger umbrella of bloggers who comment on the First Amendment every day.
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