Bloggingheads.tv

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Bloggingheads.tv

Type	Video discussion
Genre	Political, Scientific, Current Events
Founded	November 1, 2005
Founder	Robert Wright, Mickey Kaus
Headquarters	Multiple US cities, United States
Area served	World
Key people	Robert Wright, Mickey Kaus, John Horgan, George Johnson, Ezra Klein, David Corn, James Pinkerton, Matt Yglesias
Services	Video
Owner	Robert Wright
Employees	6 paid; over 150 volunteer
Website	Bloggingheads.tv
Type of site	video sharing, video blog
Registration	Optional^free (required to comment)
Available in	English
Launched	November 1, 2005
Current status	Active
Screenshot Screenshot of Bloggingheads.tv

Bloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers. The site was started by the journalist Robert Wright (The Moral Animal) and the blogger and former journalist Mickey Kaus on November 1, 2005.^[1] (Kaus has since dropped out of operational duties of the site as he didn't want his frequent linking to be seen as a conflict of interest.^[2]) Most of the earlier discussions posted to the site involved one or both of those individuals, but since has grown to include a total of more than 150 other individual contributors, mostly journalists, scientists, authors, well known political bloggers, and other notable individuals.

Unregistered users are able to view all of the videos which are contained on the site, while free registration is required to comment on the individual discussions, or participate in the forums.

1 Format
- 1.1 Regular segments
2 History
- 2.1 Media recognition
3 Site terms, features, and technology
4 Contributors to Bloggingheads.tv
5 See also
6 External links
7 References

[edit] Format

Bloggingheads discussions are conducted via webcam between two (or more) people, and can be viewed online in Flash format, or downloaded as WMV video files or MP3 sound files.^[3] New diavlogs are generally posted daily, and are all archived for future viewing. The diavlogs are generally broken up into a series of topics and subtopics a few minutes in length, links to which are placed below the video window to allow viewers to navigate to a given topic if they do not wish to view the whole discussion.

Most of the discussions posted to Bloggingheads.tv involve well known (or semi-well known) journalists, bloggers, science writers, scientists, philosophers, book authors, or other specialists in segments of current world events. Many of the discussions are of a political nature or are related to the current political environment. Those with differing points of view are often matched against one another.^[4] Diavlogs involving guests appearing for the first time often take the form of an interview, more often than that of a discussion, with a longtime Bloggingheads contributor playing the role of interviewer.

[edit] Regular segments

Although most episodes and matchups do not occur on any kind of a regular basis, there are a few notable exceptions to this. There is a weekly (previously biweekly) diavlog between the two co-founders of Bloggingheads.tv, Robert Wright and Mickey Kaus, generally related to politics in some form, that usually occurs on either Wednesday or Thursday. While some of the other diavloggers are frequently matched against each other (e.g. David Corn & James Pinkerton) there is usually not a regularly scheduled time at which they take place.

"Science Saturday" is the name given to the weekly episode appearing on Saturday that is always science related; It usually (but not always) involves either one or both of the science writers John Horgan and George Johnson. Many well-known people in the science community have been a part of Science Saturday, including Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine^[5], biologist PZ Myers^[6], Craig Venter of the Human Genome Project^[7], and philosopher David Chalmers^[8], among many others.

"Free Will" is a weekly segment that usually appears on Sunday which features Will Wilkinson interviewing well known or currently self promoting (generally due to a book release) authors, researchers, philosophers, and others who are related to libertarianism or freedom in some way.^[9] Being a libertarian writer and thinker who is a current fellow at the Cato Institute, where he works on a variety of issues such as happiness research and Social Security reform, gives Wilkinson a unique perspective with which to investigate the viewpoints of these individuals.

[edit] History

November 1, 2005 is when the site launched, with Robert Wright and Mickey Kaus being the only two initial participants in the video discussions. The site has since featured more than 150 other diavloggers.

On October 18, 2006, a site redesign was launched, with a revised home page and improved functionality: ability to comment on diavlogs was added,and to participate in forum discussions. ^[10]

In January 2007, it was announced that cable TV pioneer and C-SPAN founding chairman Bob Rosencrans, with a loose network of others, would become an angel investor of Bloggingheads.tv. The infusion of cash^[11] kicked off a dramatic expansion of the site's content, and a corresponding growth in viewers.

On March 24, 2007, in a diavlog between Garance Franke-Ruta and Ann Althouse, Althouse became quite animated and angry (to the point of yelling) over a comment Franke-Ruta made (in reference to an earlier controversy involving Jessica Valenti and former US president Bill Clinton^[12]^[13] ^[14]) referred to as an on air "meltdown" by some.^[15] This led to many blog posts and news stories in the following days on both the initial controversy and Althouse's on air behavior.^[16]^[17] ^[18]^[19]

On October 13, 2007, a conversion to Flash format from the initial Windows Media format took place.^[20]

On October 24, 2007, Bloggingheads.tv entered into a relationship with the New York Times, whereby selected video segments from the Bloggingheads site would appear in the "Videos" section on the Times website, under the Opinion subsection. ^[21] ^[22]

On December 13, 2007, a site redesign took place which removed the familiar green pages in favor of a more "Web 2.0"-look, featuring more user generated content, new navigation, new forum software for the "comments" section, and other updated features. ^[23]

[edit] Media recognition

Traditional media outlets, such at the New York Times^[24] and others^[25], have written mostly favorable reviews of Bloggingheads.tv. Stories are also often written about individuals who take part in the video discussions ^[26], as they are often well known individuals in the scientific, academic, journalism, or blogosphere community.

The majority of coverage of the site, however, has been in the form of blog coverage^[27], sometimes on the form of the blog of the person participating in the Bloggingheads discussion, and sometimes in the form of other blogs.

Some events and personality appearances on Bloggingheads.tv have led to larger than usual amounts of media coverage, such as the March 24, 2007 Ann Althouse controversy described above, and the appearance of Andrew Sullivan on December 26, 2006 and January 1, 2007, when he discussed in the most clear terms up to that point his reversal of viewpoint on the Iraq war, and his plea of apology for supporting it in the first place. ^[28]^[29]

[edit] Site terms, features, and technology

Some terms, features, and developed technology are either exclusive to Bloggingheads.tv, or have started at the site and spread to others on the internet.

[edit] Diavlog

The term diavlog (sometimes written "dia-vlog" by some bloggers^[30]) means a type of video blog (or "vlog") generally in which two people participate, as contrasted with a (mono)vlog in which one contributor is featured. The word "diavlog" is a portmanteau of the phrase "dialog video weblog" (or, alternately, "video weblog dialog"). The diavlog format is most popular for political, world events, or other types of conversational video blog discussions in which two (or more) people are actively participating in a real-time, give-and-take discussion of ideas.

The term "diavlog" was first adopted and put into wide use by Bloggingheads.tv contributors, (initially by Robert Wright and Mickey Kaus), though its original coinage is subject to debate.^[31] The term is widely used both by people on air, as well as commentors, as a term used to describe a specific conversation.

Although initially coined on the Bloggingheads site, the term has come to be used in other parts of the blogosphere and among journalists who frequently (or infrequently) participate in the encounters. ^[32]^[33] ^[34]^[35]

[edit] Dingalink

Example of a button to create a dingalink.

Dingalink is a term used to describe a direct link to a specific place in a video. Dingalinks have the ability for users to direct viewers directly to a relevant part of a video, without the viewer having to watch the video in its entirety. They are often used with video blogs when others who write blogs, articles, emails, etc., have the aim of discussing only one segment of an entire video post. The term was named after Bloggingheads.tv's technical advisor Greg Dingle, who initially developed the technology.

Specific to Bloggingheads, dingalinks are often used in the discussion surrounding a specific diavlog to refer to a particular point (or points) in the discussion to clarify what is being commented on. They are often generated automatically from the Bloggingheads video player, through the output of a time specific timecode, but can also be manually edited.

[edit] Visual aids

Due to the fairly limited medium of using webcams to record the video used in the Bloggingheads.tv episodes, a variety of visual aids and enhancements are sometimes added to the program by the participants. Generally this takes the form of holding up books, newspapers, or other objects that are being discussed to the camera, but sometimes it involves other, more exotic, items to either enhance a point or add something to the diavlog.

Wright and Kaus compare stuffed moose visual aids.

Mickey Kaus is particularly known for using visual aids such as masks (of Al Gore, Laura Bush, and others), an Ann Coulter doll, and perhaps most recognizably, a stuffed moose doll. According to Kaus ^[36] "Deploying the moose" symbolizes Pinch Sulzberger's idea of "the unaddressed important issue" similar to the "elephant in the room." Bob has since received a stuffed moose of his own.

Also, various live animals (usually pets) have been displayed onscreen during the course of conversations. Bob has displayed his family pet, a poodle mix named Frazier, several times. ^[37] ^[38]

[edit] Contributors to Bloggingheads.tv

While many of the initial diavlogs featured Wright and Kaus exclusively, other regular participants at Bloggingheads.tv have grown to include many differing ideologies and viewpoints, politically, scientifically, and philosophically. Regular contributors include Rosa Brooks, Jonathan Chait, David Corn, Ross Douthat, Daniel Drezner, Heather Hurlburt, John Horgan, Garance Franke-Ruta, Jonah Goldberg, Ezra Klein, James Pinkerton, Mark Schmitt and Matthew Yglesias, among many others.

Apart from the regular contributors, a host of well known occasional guests have appeared, usually in the form of being interviewed. Among others, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama talked about his book America at the Crossroads; the Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg discussed his book The Accidental Empire (about the history of the settlements)^[39]; the Washington Post columnist Joel Achenbach on an article of his about global-warming skeptics^[40]; Andrew Sullivan on his book The Conservative Soul^[41]; and Craig Venter, director of the Human Genome Project, who spoke of future scientific innovations he is currently pursuing.^[42]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

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