Old/New World Discourse: NBN's Jewish Bloggers' convention

I don't get out much. When I teach writing, it's either in a university classroom or in another limited venue. When I write, I seclude myself in the small area in which my laptop and printer live. When I dally, it's within the confines of a ceramics workshop or among imaginary daisies with imaginary hedgehogs.

Sometimes, though, it makes sense for me to leave my safety zones. One such occasion was Nefesh B'Nefesh's First Annual International Jewish Bloggers' Convention. I am a blogger. I am also a NBN aluma.

It seems that blogging was never meant to take the place of newspaper columns, but to replace them in social importance. Since blogs can enhance and create social networking, blogs have staked a place among the most relevant (read "convergent") of the social media. Blogs have become a significant social power. Blogs are the new media's "sexy."

Evidence the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu, former Prime Minister of Israel, and Zavi Apfelbaum, Director of Brand Management, Israeli Foreign Ministry, were among the speakers at the International Jewish Bloggers' Convention. Evidence the fact that NBN deemed it valuable to fly a few bloggers in from outside Israel to the International Jewish Bloggers' Convention. Evidence the fact that over one thousand folk, who couldn't fit into the finite space of the rooms where the convention was being held, joined the proceedings electronically.

While the demographics (and psychographics) of the attendees seemed to cover the  array of Jewish life, the attendees seemed to share some qualities; those writers had agendas, those writers had business savvy, and those writers saw that blogger meeting as an opportunity to make contacts, hence to spread their agendas and to use their business savvy. If nothing else, most of the individuals flitting about those rooms were anything but reticent.

A few of us, though, are still digesting the ramifications of such a happening. Whereas other bloggers have posted widely and often on the convention, trying, as is their wont, to sway members of the general reading audience to their position, as well as to impact the behavior of other gatekeepers of the greater blogosphere, visa via comments both positive and otherwise, I am still mulling over the implications of this phenomenon. Five or ten years ago, such an item would not have occurred, nor would it have been so well sponsored, facilitated or presided over.

The government, a major aliyah organization, and bloggers from both sides of the pond, seem to share the belief that web logs, especially those created and maintained by Jewish writers and that revolve around "Jewish themes" are powerful public relations tools, even if veering on being exclusively entertaining or downright technical in nature. We social creatures tend to act on social beliefs, even if we initially do not create or agree with them.

If enough people with social status, over long enough of a period of time, testify about the utility of a medium, a culture will come to value that medium, even if the members of that culture, as is the case in certain socio-economic situations, have limited access to that channel of ideas. Simply, if "blogging" is notorious, more people will read, write and link blogs.

There is also the shared belief that blogging can be a good source of income. The convention's sponsors and some of the bloggers, themselves, bank on this notion of personal, literal, profit being derivable from blogs. This engine, too, had often proved to guide social change. Skilled rhetors will increasingly move away from traditional mass media if there are more dollars, euros, or shekels to be made by using a contemporary vehicle than by sticking to a traditional one. 

At the meeting, itself, the food was mehadrin (i.e. glatt kosher), but many of the participants used language or behavior that was not. There were instances of audience members shouting platitudes and there were small commotions made several times during the proceedings when bloggers thought that such behavior might lend their personal agendas or, less directly, their URLs some time on the bandwidth that had been purchased to cast the event.

Yet, among the well-cooked, gratis dinner and the well-cooked blogger hosts (the first of which was yummy because it tasted good, and the second of which were yummy because they graciously donated much time and effort to provide a platform for the rest of us) was a taste of moving toward a common goal. The shared need among the persons present was to recast the world's eye on Israel.

Too often this holy land and its holy people are misconstrued, by "everyone else" as either entirely preoccupied by martial matters or as being only accepting of people with a particular religious stripe. Neither of those concepts, as expressed in this blog, and in most other blogs taking up space in the J-blogosphere, reflects reality.

If the conference participants, both those who had the chance to be up close and personal to their electronic media heroes, and those who benefited, virtually, by tuning into the webcast, gleaned nothing else, at least we were reminded that words can make or break reality. We were prompted, as well, to use our booths in the Internet marketplace to promote the goods of Israel.

Little Smile:

Speaking of blogs and their social influence, last month, when I googled "Old/New World Discourse," I discovered this blog referred to by: a site on parenting in Israel, a site on independent schooling, and a site on working mothers. To my surprise, though, this blog had also been picked up by a site for museums in Dubai, United Arab Emirates!