Polls 'n' stuff

While looking through our class list of suggested news sites and blogs, I found myself becoming immersed in the beauty of the blogosphere.  I started to click away onto new and different sites recommended by the previous blogs I was reading.  It was all a bit overwhelming, and I might have blacked out for a while.  When I regained consciousness, I found myself on Kai Arzheimer's blog on American/German politics.   (Considering that we have the same name, I HAD to post something of his.)  While the details of one of his latest posts deals with a German news story, I felt that the central theme was relevant to our class.

Arzeheimer, a political scientist himself, was commenting on a news story from the German newspaper ZEIT.  The article shed light on a recent poll, claiming that Germans were now more afraid of right-wing neo-Nazi terrorism than of Islamist extremist terrorism.  More info can be found on the blog post itself.  Rather than accepting the results as a sign of a shift in the political and social atmosphere of the country, Arzheimer looked to find out whether the results of the poll actually mean anything.  He used several formulas to analyze the data; none of which I can fully understand, so hopefully I am not being duped by some pseudo-intellectual explanation by some random guy that has the same name as me.  Instead, I think it was a good example of what it means to be a responsible and accountable blogger.

My point here is not to criticize journalists or praise political scientists.  Instead, I think it's important to note the role of blogging in our society today.  When a main news story comes out, bloggers take it upon themselves to critically analyze the information in the news story.  (Good) bloggers are able to dissect the story and pinpoint what's really important.  Undoubtedly, many bloggers have different biases and points of view.  But if their arguments are intellectually honest (as I hope Mr. Arzheimer's was) then their work is valuable in evaluating and being a watchdog of the mainstream media.