Sharpe's Opinion

The Hand of History Rests on Blogging

Peter Mandelson, quoted in The Guardian, reckons the age of the sound-bite is still in force:

Instead of just forcing [the message] through the old media, we have to bring it alive in the new media … To compete, to get noticed, what we are saying really needs to stand out. It has to have the qualities of freshness and humour and originality that we did not necessarily have to have when occupying the old world. The other thing it has to have is an immediacy … If we have none of those things, we are going to be cast aside. People are just going to look away, not pick up what we are saying, not think about the point we are making … It’s not about making an entirely false choice between the old command and control ways of the old media and the inchoate, online anarchy of the blogosphere. It’s about finding a way of combing both of these. We will still have to have slogans, we will still have to have soundbites, well-chosen, and they need to be repeated.

He really doesn’t get the way that the internet changes the game. Soundbytes won’t work because your ‘message’ will be dissected, contradicted, argued against and refuted on the internet. In this age, you won’t get ahead by communicating your message. You’ll get ahead by having a message that’s worth a damn.

He also makes a mildly amusing gag about the old “This is not a time for soundbytes, but I feel the hand of history on my shoulder” speech of Blair’s. Funny guy, that Mandelson.

Events, Dear Boy Events (NB: Please include a back-link to your source, it’s difficult to follow a thread without that…)