"Arts and Letters Daily is an example of the pure ``communo-genic'' function. It creates a lens for the cultured, conservative Anglo Saxon, entirely by selecting from other web sites 3 noteworthy articles per day. We notice it at openDemocracy--when it lists one of our pieces we see the traffic spike. Arts and Letters Daily creates its cultural commentary through careful aggregation--it builds it with the smaller lego pieces available elsewhere. The traffic spike that we see from it suggests that Arts and Letters Daily has real credibility amongst its readers: they trust it to take them places worthy of attention. It is a sort of Michelin guide for that tribe. When I click through an A&L Daily article, I arrive at it with all sorts of preconceptions: I arrive at the article not with a mind as a blank slate, but ready to resume my conversation with the cultured right. A&L has framed my reading just as a newspaper's commentary pages does."(openDemocracy | the blind newsmaker | Tony Curzon Price)

- See: Politics

:: note :: ... have been off&on an Arts and Letters Daily reader ... know this tendency of reading to support My world view ... struggle to open to the other ...

1:17:41 PM     comment []   . .    Open firefly