NPR: "blogosphere is shaping our political and news environment"

Traditional news outlets like NPR and the New York Times are heralding the influence of the blogosphere and Facebook in putting the Jena story into the national discussion.

Additionally, NPR reports blogs are increasingly responsible for decisions made by prominent national leaders.

Yup, you people are the persons of the year.

Click here for the story.

Note: The picture above is a screenshot of the story in the link (above) on NPR's website.

This Week in AP U.S. Gov #4

It's the 4th week of school and we're getting ready to wrap up the first unit of study. Make sure you are caught up on all the reading and making good notes. Know chapter 3 for class this week! {wink, wink}

You should have commented on 3 blogspots by now;Friday is the deadline for your second blog; and this weekend the AP U.S. Government & Politics podcast goes live on iTunes. More on that soon...

~Mr. G.

Blogs and Comments

AP Gov-ers,

The first Friday of the 3rd week has come and gone and nearly every one of you is a published blogger. Congratulations!

1. Stick to politics - don't post about your pet rock, mom's apple pie, or your new stamp collecting club.

2. The tone of your blog entries should fit the subject, audience, and purpose. You're writing opinions about American politics - a silly tone will make your opinion seem silly, which will render it unconvincing. That goes for comments on other people's blogs too.

3. Comments - the "soft" due date for these is mid-week-"ish". By Wednesday 9/19-ish, you should comment on 3 blog entries on 3 different blogspots. For each of the next 14 weeks, choose a new 3 blogspots on which to comment. By the semester exam, you'll have commented on 45 different blogs. You can always comment on more than 3 blogs, or become "a regular" on a particular blogspot, but you still must do the 3 different blogspots each week. If you get into the assignment by posting extra blog entries and commenting on more than 3 each week, you'll find you really enjoy politics!

4. RSS - The APUSGOV Blogosphere Directory (on the right) can help you navigate all our blogspots. Additionally, you may find setting up RSS feeds of the blogs you like and those you commented on might be worthwhile for you. You can see in the picture above (click on it) that I've done that for all our blogs. And you were wondering how I was going to surf around the web to all 150 blogspots! Remember, I'm the person of the year - they come to me!