…The media folks (generalizing) still think that the important effect that blogging is having on them ? and they do believe it’s having an effect ? comes from bloggers who are sorta kinda journalists. But that’s a tiny percentage of the blogosphere. The truly disruptive effect of bloggers comes from the rest of the blogosphere that doesn’t think of itself as journalistic at all. We’re not the farm team for Big Media. We’re a different ballpark entirely.

In fact, we’re not a ballpark at all, of course. The other big gap between us is easy to state but hard to explain: The media is owned. The blogosphere isn’t. We together are building it. The media have to try to get us interested in what they do, but the blogosphere is constructed out of our interests. It’s ours not (just) in the sense of ownership but in the sense of what we care about and what we are.

David Weinberger: 1/22/05

Well said. It made me think of Shelley’s declaration: “I will never issue a disclaimer at this site. Again.”