HW 11: Can Bloggers Change the International Political Scene?

I chose to review a blog called The Kenyan Pundit, started by a Harvard law student named Ory Okollah who is from Kenya. The first thing you notice is the somewhat blurry aerial picture of what appears to be a street in Kenya. There are many links on the side to other relevant blogs, including some sarcastic ones like, “People Magazine is so 2004” with links to their stories underneath. It seems to me that only Ory Okolloh blogs on it and others leave their comments. There is a column that links all of the different categories she writes about some of which are titled, Africa, Africa and Blogs, American Politics, and Development and Aid. The style of writing varies with the categories, if she is writing under her Baby KP category she is pretty informal but with the political blogs she is more formal.
In reading an interview titled, Making Global Voices Heard with Rebecca MacKinnon in David Kline and Dan Burstein’s Blog! How the Newest Media Revolution is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture MacKinnon reports, “Basically she [Okolloh] has become a hub figure who has spawned the growth of the Kenyan blogosphere” (MacKinnon 330). What MacKinnon is saying is that by having such a blog in existence it is linking other such bloggers and making them all be a part of the political scene. I agree with MacKinnon’s assessment of the blog, it really does have all the aspects needed to create discussion and change. Although I grant that some might say that these blogs are still in their very early days and can’t make such a significant change so easily, I still maintain that just the existence of such blogs opens the doors for open communication and that is the very foundation of democracy.