Noise Vs. Contemplation In The Blogosphere

Interesting post by Vaugn Ververs on the CBSNews "PublicEye" blog:

"There would be plenty of people arguing that the kind of discourse happening on many blogs undermines the actual points bloggers and commenters are trying to make... but the real below-the-belt stuff isn’t as common as some may lead you to believe. The real danger, it seems to me, is a perception of blogs as reactions gauges – a perception that appears to be growing...

When bloggers get more attention for the volume and tone of their discourse than what they might be adding to the dialogue, they are in danger of being marginalized by those on the outside, especially in the mainstream media. Blogs begin to be seen as a pool of emotional response instead of interesting additions to a story or topic.

Over time, will the question, “how are bloggers reacting?” start to simply overwhelm the more valuable question of, “what are bloggers saying?” {...} Will blog-rage simply overpower citizen journalism?"

Atrios belittles it, but I do think this is the issue at the heart of the future of the blogosphere.