Is Author Michael Keren Using Bloggers To Sell His Book?

Canadian blogger Mark Wells says in February 2, 2007, post that "University of Calgary academic Michael Keren has cashed in on bloggers with a new book, Blogosphere—The New Political Arena, which claims bloggers are on the margins of political discourse."

"A quick search of the tag “Michael Keren” on Technorati reveals 1,162 bloggers linking to stories on the book," he writes at By Mark Wells. "Unlike news stories, many of these posts will stay up for years, generating publicity that could not be imagined from a newspaper."

Wells invites "any blogger who has written on Keren’s book to share the number of hits the post has received. I suspect it would go a long way to discrediting his claims about the “lonely blogger,” he wrote.

To read the entire post, please see "Statistics on Michael Keren’s blog-smear.

Also see BlogsCanada: E-Group's Jim Elve's January 31, 2007, post headlined "U Calgary Prof: Political Bloggers Akin to Terrorists - Lonely, Melancholy, Powerless."

And James Bow over at "Bow. James Bow" asks" "Where Are All the Lonely People? Not in the Blogosphere!

The Calgary Herald wants to know Are bloggers geeks or heroes?

Comments

[Munir Umrani]

James,

I think you are right about the quotes from "Blogosphere—The New Political Arena" being too rich to pass up. Especially since, as you say, Keren's "hypotheses are so easy to disprove." I may one day read it, however, it won't be because I bought it.
Munir

[James Bow]

"Is Author Michael Keren Using Bloggers To Sell His Book?"

Yeah, that thought crossed my mind. But the material he provided was just too rich a smackdown opportunity for me to avoid. I guess bloggers don't miss an opportunity to show some solidarity, do they? And as a result, maybe he did play us like a violin.

Still, I'm not buying his book, and neither are these bloggers. And as his hypotheses are so easy to disprove, it's hard to consider many other people will either.