Lind explores the Swedish term for military intelligence underrattelser (which means: correction from below). He sees it as a necessary mechanism for reducing errors in the military intelligence system.
It's important to note that this is a process that is going on right now in the blogosphere. Citizen journalists are correcting the professional media's errors and expanding mightily on their work. Further, the conversation that results from this activity is often as valuable as the correction or the article itself.
This entry reminded me of a post Tom Barnett has on Daily Kos:
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2007/02/when_did_daily_kos_turn_from_b.html
What's very ironic about it is that it started out as decentralized, non-hierarchal organization of diarists, but as they acquired mainstream power DK transformed into an rigid hierarchy dominated by Kos and his followers. It definitely says something about the netoots--that once they gain power they lose the "underrattelser" that made them so powerful in the first place.
Posted by: AE | February 22, 2007 at 11:41 PM