Blog-islation

Blog-islation???? not a term I've come accross before.....in the US blogging is starting to gain coverage as being a real channel of influence in the legislative process, as this report on Govexec illustrates: bloggers were behind push to get the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (which aimed to"create a Google-like search engine and database" that tracks $1 trillion in federal spending on contracts) on the statute book at stage when it had "stalled".

Is blogging starting to have this sort of influence in the UK? is the influence of the blogging in the US overhyped? In the UK, Ian Dale's recent top 100 politcial blogs has certainly highlighted the increased scope and range of active politcial blogs has increased dramatically. This article (April 2006) from the Guardian shows that the influence of blogs into the mainstream still has someway to go in the UK :"Media coverage of blogging has led to increased awareness of the phenomenon among internet users, but this has not yet translated into more people writing or regularly reading blogs, according to new research.". In the UK the blogging community have been actively campaigning about the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill in the Save Paraliament campaign, which got little maintsteam media coverage but the Government have offered some concessions on and it is hard to say if bloggers were an important influence.

On the subject areas this blog covers I hope the blogging community will really get behind any blog based campaign if a new, more restrictive freedom of information act fees regime is formally announced soon - warch this space!.......