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Overhyped, but blogs are here to stay

With more than a one-eyed view on the topic, MPS sees a life out there for blogs - and a growing one to boot. Sam Roggeveen, a former intelligence analyst, and editor of the Lowy Institute's blog, thinks so too. Then again he would!

Writing an op-ed piece "Overhyped, but blogs are here to stay" in the SMH, Roggeveen says:

"Blogs have never completely lived up to their early hype. They haven't made many bloggers rich, or ushered in a new era of "citizen journalism", or wrested control of political debates from the mainstream media. But they are gaining political importance, and they are influencing the conduct of foreign and strategic policy.

Not only do academics, experts, bureaucrats and political staffers monitor blogs as part of their work, governments are starting to see that the medium itself can improve the way they do business.

Blogs from all over the world provide unique on-the-ground perspectives that can be critical to understanding a country or a crisis. Burma bloggers gave first-hand accounts during the regime's recent crackdown. An Iranian exile illustrated the barbarity of the Iranian Government by posting a video of a woman being hanged in a public square in Tabriz. And a Baghdad architect calling himself Salam Pax became a blog sensation with his first-hand descriptions of America's invasion of Iraq.

There are rich pockets of information like this all around the blogosphere. Chinese military-themed blogs have become a useful source for China watchers looking for new pictures of secretive weapons systems. Google Earth plays a part here too - an American blog recently confirmed the existence of a new class of Chinese submarines using commercial satellite images.

It is not just as witnesses that bloggers contribute to international security debates. Blogs can also bring a level of analysis to international events that governments and the media cannot always match. For instance, arms control professionals keep a keen eye on an American blog called Arms Control Wonk. It offers outstanding analysis by subject-matter specialists, and occasionally even breaks stories - its editor, Jeffrey Lewis, was first with the news in January that China had conducted a successful test of an anti-satellite weapon."

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