As recently posed by Coatse (Tom Coates) in an otherwise NDA’d BBC blogging policy meeting:
(Paraphrased:) Maybe the reason the UK public are a little behind our Amercian cousins when it comes to being across blogging is because it’s not very ‘British’ for the common man to stand and up and ‘have his say’ on something.
I think he’s right – in America, it’s constitutional right, etc. In Britain, well, we don’t even have a constitution…
Anyone who stands up in a public arena to voice their opinion is open to be heckled with “who do you think you are?”, etc. We just don’t seem to be in the habit of reading the opinions of others, unless they are presented as an “expert”, “opinion former”, “commentator”, etc.
With this in mind, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that there are far fewer blogs per capita in the UK than there are in the US, or even in our neighbouring France. Will the average British public ultimately get blogs? I hope so – but let me know what you think…
(I’m at work so this post has been curtailed slightly a I have to get on with what I’m paid to do!)
We do have a Constitution, Jim, but not as you know it.
Freedom of speech? Head off down to Speakers’ Corner on a Sunday morning to see it in action but hurry before Bliar curtails this vital component of any democracy.
What ever happned to “Speakers Corner”?
Have to completely disagree. The British are *much* better at public discourse: witness the sensation that the dibate between Hitchens and (spit) Galloway caused in the US.
Only the middle class suburbans were ever the ones that didn’t think it was “proper” to voice an opinion – in the rest of the country, it’s always been essential!
So why do we blog less? Perhaps because we’re less introspective – and a vast proportion of blogs are introspection.