With bullets pinging throughout central Bangkok, a corps of Thailand-focused bloggers are delivering information and analysis to an audience desperate for the latest news about the violence.
It isn't that bloggers are necessarily breaking news on the conflict. Mainstream media continues to play the lead role in delivering reporting and major factual themes about fatalities, troop movements and statements from the government. However, blogs are way in front of mainstream media in serving as a platform for analysis, sharing information and photos, opinion, maps of the conflict zone and as collection points for breaking mainstream media news and analysis.
Blogs are also serving as a forum for debate and as a barometer for public opinion. The New Mandela blog recently introduced a comment rating system, allowing members of its community to rate comments in reaction to blog posts. The impact is that those comments rated most favorably rise to the top of the page, offering a rudimentary gauge to the opinion of New Mandela's readership.
Blogs are also serving as unique collection point for news reports from Thai news media and international news media. In regular posts, the Bangkok Pundit blog provides summaries of key excerpts, links and analysis of news and opinion articles from The Nation, Bangkok Post, Matichon, Krungthep Turakij along with the New York Times, Reuters, AP, Straits Times, Bloomberg, CNN and the BBC.
Photography of the conflict zone is also an important feature of the blogs covering the Thai conflict. In addition to linking to photos in Thai and international news media, the Nation's State blog features original photos from the conflict, including from the government's designated "Live Fire" zones. Contributors and commentators are also providing original photography and video to their blogs of choice.
New Mandela, Bangkok Pundit and Nation's State have long been part of the routine daily download for people interested in Thai politics. But now, their servers are working at full-capacity to keep up with the traffic. What was once one or two visits per day to these blogs before the conflict, is probably closer to a dozen or more daily visits for the average visitor.
In addition, new bloggers have arrived on the scene. As the Bangkok Pundit notes today, military blogger Michael Yon is now in Bangkok, blogging and tweeting on the conflict with analysis of the weaponry and military strategy.
Media of all types are obviously playing an important role in this conflict. The mainstream media continues to deliver breaking information. But blogs are now serving as indispensable go-to outlets for people seeking a steady flow of information.
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