Bloggingheads.tv
Encyclopedia
Bloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy
, and science
video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers. The site was started by the journalist
Robert Wright
(The Evolution of God
, Nonzero, The Moral Animal
) and the blog
ger and journalist
Mickey Kaus
on November 1, 2005. (Kaus has since dropped out of operational duties of the site as he didn't want his frequent linking to be seen as a conflict of interest.) Most of the earlier discussions posted to the site involved one or both of those individuals, but since has grown to include a total of hundreds of other individual contributors, mostly journalists, academics, scientists, authors, well known political bloggers, and other notable individuals.
Unregistered users are able to view all of the videos which are contained on the site, while free registration is required to comment on the individual discussions, or participate in the forums.
between two (or more) people, and can be viewed online in Flash
format, or downloaded as WMV video files, MP4
video files, or MP3
sound files. New diavlogs are generally posted daily, and are all archived for future viewing. The diavlogs are generally broken up into a series of topics and subtopics a few minutes in length, links to which are placed below the video window to allow viewers to navigate to a given topic if they do not wish to view the whole discussion.
Most of the discussions posted to Bloggingheads.tv involve well known (or semi-well known) journalist
s, blog
gers, science writers, scientist
s, philosophers, book author
s, or other specialists in segments of current world events. Many of the discussions are of a political nature or are related to the current political environment. Those with differing points of view are often matched against one another. Diavlogs involving guests appearing for the first time often take the form of an interview
, more often than that of a discussion, with a longtime Bloggingheads contributor playing the role of interviewer.
& James Pinkerton
) there is usually not a regularly scheduled time at which they take place.
"Science Saturday" is the name given to the weekly episode appearing on Saturday that is always science related; It usually (but not always) involves either one or both of the science writers John Horgan
and George Johnson
. Many well-known people in the science community have been a part of Science Saturday, including Michael Shermer
of Skeptic Magazine
, biologist PZ Myers
, Craig Venter
of the Human Genome Project
, aging researcher and biogerentologist Aubrey de Grey
, and philosopher David Chalmers
, among many others. However, in September 2009, four high-profile science bloggers who had previously participated in Bloggingheads.tv discussions publicly distanced themselves from the site and stated they would no longer agree to appear in Bloggingheads.tv segments. The scientists—Sean Carroll, Carl Zimmer, Phil Plait and PZ Myers—all criticized what they claimed was a policy by Bloggingheads.tv to provide a platform for the anti-scientific ideology, Creationism
without an opposing point of view for balance. PZ Myers said: "[Bloggingheads.tv] was setting up crackpots with softball interviews that made them look reasonable, because their peculiar ideas were never confronted."
"The Week in Blog" is a weekly segment which normally appears on the site on Fridays. The format is to discuss what has showed up on the past week on both liberal and conservative blogs, from both a liberal and conservative viewpoint. The three regular hosts of "TWIB" are Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis, Kristin Soltis of the Winston Group, and Matt Lewis
of The Daily Caller
. Original host Conn Carroll of The Heritage Foundation
stepped aside in early 2009. Guests who have appeared on the show are Armando Llorens (of Daily Kos
), Amanda Carpenter
, and Nate Silver
(of FiveThirtyEight) among many others.
"Values Added" is a weekly segment on the intersection between religion and politics.
and Mickey Kaus
being the only two initial participants in the video discussions. The site has since featured more than 250 other diavloggers.
On October 18, 2006, a site redesign was launched, with a revised home page and improved functionality: ability to comment on diavlogs was added,and to participate in forum discussions.
In January 2007, it was announced that cable TV pioneer and C-SPAN
founding chairman Bob Rosencrans, with a loose network of others, would become an angel investor
of Bloggingheads.tv. The infusion of cash
kicked off a dramatic expansion of the site's content, and a corresponding growth in viewers.
On March 24, 2007, in a diavlog between Garance Franke-Ruta
and Ann Althouse
, Althouse became quite animated and angry (to the point of yelling) over a comment Franke-Ruta made (in reference to an earlier controversy involving Jessica Valenti and former US president Bill Clinton
) referred to as an on air "meltdown" by some. This led to many blog posts and news stories in the following days on both the initial controversy and Althouse's on air behavior.
On October 13, 2007, a conversion to Flash format from the initial Windows Media format took place.
On October 24, 2007, Bloggingheads.tv entered into a relationship with the New York Times, whereby selected video segments from the Bloggingheads site would appear in the "Videos" section on the Times website, under the Opinion subsection.
On December 13, 2007, a site redesign took place which removed the familiar green pages in favor of a more "Web 2.0
"-look, featuring more user generated content, new navigation, new forum software for the "comments" section, and other updated features.
In 2008, several new segments and diavloggers were added or made more regular, including "Free Will", "This Week in Blog", and "UN Plaza". Other updates and tweaks to the site, such as the addition of the MP4 video format were also gradually phased in.
The majority of coverage of the site, however, has been in the form of blog
coverage, sometimes on the form of the blog of the person participating in the Bloggingheads discussion, and sometimes in the form of other blogs.
Some events and personality appearances on Bloggingheads.tv have led to larger than usual amounts of media coverage, such as the March 24, 2007 Ann Althouse controversy described above, and the appearance of Andrew Sullivan
on December 26, 2006 and January 1, 2007, when he discussed in the most clear terms up to that point his reversal of viewpoint on the Iraq war, and his plea of apology for supporting it in the first place.
participate, as contrasted with a (mono)vlog in which one contributor is featured. The word "diavlog" is a portmanteau of the phrase "dialog video weblog" (or, alternately, "video weblog dialog"). The diavlog format is most popular for political, world events, or other types of conversational video blog
discussions in which two (or more) people are actively participating in a real-time, give-and-take discussion of ideas.
The term "diavlog" was first adopted and put into wide use by Bloggingheads.tv contributors, (initially by Robert Wright
and Mickey Kaus
), though its original coinage is subject to debate. The term is widely used both by people on air, as well as commentors, to describe a specific conversation.
Although initially coined on the Bloggingheads site, the term has come to be used in other parts of the blogosphere
and among journalist
s who frequently (or infrequently) participate in the encounters.
The term is sometimes spelled "diavlogue" by those outside the United States. (see: American and British English spelling differences
)
"Dingalink" is a term used to describe a direct link to a specific place in a video. (a beginning time and an end time) "Dingalinks" have the ability for users to direct viewers directly to a relevant part of a video, without the viewer having to watch the video in its entirety. They are used with video blogs when others who write blog
s, articles, email
s, etc., have the aim of discussing only one segment of an entire video post. The term was named after Bloggingheads.tv's technical advisor Greg Dingle, who initially developed the technology.
On Bloggingheads.tv, direct linking is often useful in the discussion surrounding a specific "diavlog" to refer to a particular point (or points) in the discussion to clarify what is being commented on. The direct linking can be automatically generated from the Bloggingheads Flash video player, through the adjustment of the beginning and end of the video that one might want to display. (Start/End time can also be manually edited once the code is generated.)
Embedding of video is a feature that was added to Bloggingheads.tv in 2008 as a consequence of converting to Flash Video. It allows for bloggers and other websites to embed the video player into their blog or website so that the content can be viewed locally instead of the need to visit the actual Bloggingheads.tv site. This feature is similar to the YouTube and Google Video (among others) feature which had previously become prevalent on the internet.
Due to the fairly limited medium of using webcam
s to record the video used in the Bloggingheads.tv episodes, a variety of visual aids and enhancements are sometimes added to the program by the participants. Generally this takes the form of holding up book
s, newspaper
s, or other objects that are being discussed to the camera, but sometimes it involves other, more exotic, items to either enhance a point or add something to the diavlog.
Mickey Kaus is particularly known for using visual aids such as mask
s (of Al Gore
, Laura Bush
, and others), an Ann Coulter
doll, and perhaps most recognizably, a stuffed moose
doll. According to Kaus, "deploying the moose" symbolizes Pinch Sulzberger
's idea of "the unaddressed important issue" similar to the "elephant in the room
." Robert Wright has since received a stuffed moose of his own.
Also, various live animals (usually pets) have been displayed onscreen during the course of conversations. Wright has displayed his family pet, a poodle mix named Frazier, several times. (Frazier was popular enough to subsequently get his own Facebook
and Twitter
profiles.) Other people have had their cat displayed onscreen, such as that of Ana Marie Cox
, John McWhorter
, and Jonah Goldberg
.
Other interesting onscreen visual aids that have been employed include the use of a kazoo
by Matt Welch
, hats by various people (e.g. a Santa hat by Jonah Goldberg, and a New Years Day hat by Mickey Kaus
), and the display of a sextant
by Robert Farley in a discussion on pirates.
. Regular contributors include Ann Althouse
, Peter Beinart
, Rosa Brooks
, Jonathan Chait
, David Corn
, Ross Douthat
, Daniel Drezner
, Heather Hurlburt, John Horgan
, Jonah Goldberg
, Ezra Klein
, Eli Lake
, Glenn Loury
, Megan McArdle
, John McWhorter
, James Pinkerton
, Mark Schmitt
and Matthew Yglesias, among many others.
Apart from the regular contributors, a host of well known occasional guests have appeared, usually in the form of being interviewed. Among others, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama
talked about his book America at the Crossroads; the Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg
discussed his book The Accidental Empire (about the history of the settlements); the Washington Post columnist Joel Achenbach
on an article of his about global-warming skeptics (among other topics); Andrew Sullivan
on his book The Conservative Soul; biogerentologist Aubrey de Grey
on how to defeat the "disease" of aging; philosopher David Chalmers
; Nate Silver
(of FiveThirtyEight.com
); and Craig Venter
, director of the Human Genome Project
, who spoke of future scientific innovations he is currently pursuing.
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, and science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers. The site was started by the journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
Robert Wright
Robert Wright (journalist)
Robert Wright is an American journalist, scholar, and prize-winning author of best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology, history, religion, and game theory, including The Evolution of God, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, The Moral Animal, and Three Scientists and Their Gods:...
(The Evolution of God
The Evolution of God
The Evolution of God is a 2009 book by Robert Wright that explores the history of the concept of God in the three Abrahamic religions through a variety of means, including archeology, history, theology, and evolutionary psychology...
, Nonzero, The Moral Animal
The Moral Animal
The Moral Animal is a 1994 book by Robert Wright. The New York Times Book Review chose it as one of the 12 best books of 1994; it was a national bestseller and has been published in 12 languages....
) and the blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
ger and journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
Mickey Kaus
Mickey Kaus
Robert Michael Kaus , better known as Mickey Kaus, is an American journalist, pundit, and author best known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on Slate until 2010. Kaus is the author of The End of Equality and had previously worked as a journalist for Newsweek, The...
on November 1, 2005. (Kaus has since dropped out of operational duties of the site as he didn't want his frequent linking to be seen as a conflict of interest.) Most of the earlier discussions posted to the site involved one or both of those individuals, but since has grown to include a total of hundreds of other individual contributors, mostly journalists, academics, scientists, authors, well known political bloggers, and other notable individuals.
Unregistered users are able to view all of the videos which are contained on the site, while free registration is required to comment on the individual discussions, or participate in the forums.
Format
Bloggingheads discussions are conducted via webcamWebcam
A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi.Their most popular use is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations. This common use as a video camera...
between two (or more) people, and can be viewed online in Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
format, or downloaded as WMV video files, MP4
MPEG-4 Part 14
MPEG-4 Part 14 or MP4 is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital video and digital audio streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images...
video files, or MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
sound files. New diavlogs are generally posted daily, and are all archived for future viewing. The diavlogs are generally broken up into a series of topics and subtopics a few minutes in length, links to which are placed below the video window to allow viewers to navigate to a given topic if they do not wish to view the whole discussion.
Most of the discussions posted to Bloggingheads.tv involve well known (or semi-well known) journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
s, blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
gers, science writers, scientist
Scientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
s, philosophers, book author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
s, or other specialists in segments of current world events. Many of the discussions are of a political nature or are related to the current political environment. Those with differing points of view are often matched against one another. Diavlogs involving guests appearing for the first time often take the form of an interview
Interview
An interview is a conversation between two people where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information from the interviewee.- Interview as a Method for Qualitative Research:"Definition" -...
, more often than that of a discussion, with a longtime Bloggingheads contributor playing the role of interviewer.
Regular segments
Although most episodes and matchups do not occur on any kind of a regular basis, there are a few notable exceptions to this. There is a frequent (previously biweekly and weekly, but now less frequent) diavlog matchup between the two co-founders of Bloggingheads.tv, Robert Wright and Mickey Kaus, generally related to politics in some form, that usually occurs on either Wednesday or Thursday. While some of the other diavloggers are frequently matched against each other (e.g. David CornDavid Corn
David Corn is an American political journalist and author and the chief of the Washington bureau for Mother Jones. He has been Washington editor for The Nation and appeared regularly on FOX News, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and BloggingHeads.tv opposite James Pinkerton or other media...
& James Pinkerton
James Pinkerton
James Pinkerton is a columnist, author, and political analyst. A graduate of Peter Vanleslie High School and Stanford University, he served on the White House staff under both Ronald Reagan and George H.W...
) there is usually not a regularly scheduled time at which they take place.
John Horgan (American journalist)
John Horgan is an American science journalist best known for his 1996 book The End of Science. He has written for many publications, including Scientific American, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and IEEE Spectrum...
and George Johnson
George Johnson (writer)
George Johnson is an American journalist and science writer. He is the author of a number of books, including The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments and Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in 20th-Century Physics , and writes for a number of publications, including The New York...
. Many well-known people in the science community have been a part of Science Saturday, including Michael Shermer
Michael Shermer
Michael Brant Shermer is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members...
of Skeptic Magazine
Skeptic (U.S. magazine)
Skeptic is a quarterly science education and science advocacy magazine published internationally by The Skeptics Society, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting scientific skepticism and resisting the spread of pseudoscience, superstition, and irrational beliefs...
, biologist PZ Myers
PZ Myers
Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers is an American biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris and the author of the Pharyngula science blog. He is currently an associate professor of biology at UMM, works with zebrafish in the field of evolutionary developmental biology , and also cultivates an...
, Craig Venter
Craig Venter
John Craig Venter is an American biologist and entrepreneur, most famous for his role in being one of the first to sequence the human genome and for his role in creating the first cell with a synthetic genome in 2010. Venter founded Celera Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Research and the J...
of the Human Genome Project
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...
, aging researcher and biogerentologist Aubrey de Grey
Aubrey de Grey
Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey is an English author and theoretician in the field of gerontology, and the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Foundation. He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Rejuvenation Research, author of The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging and co-author...
, and philosopher David Chalmers
David Chalmers
David John Chalmers is an Australian philosopher specializing in the area of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, whose recent work concerns verbal disputes. He is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University...
, among many others. However, in September 2009, four high-profile science bloggers who had previously participated in Bloggingheads.tv discussions publicly distanced themselves from the site and stated they would no longer agree to appear in Bloggingheads.tv segments. The scientists—Sean Carroll, Carl Zimmer, Phil Plait and PZ Myers—all criticized what they claimed was a policy by Bloggingheads.tv to provide a platform for the anti-scientific ideology, Creationism
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
without an opposing point of view for balance. PZ Myers said: "[Bloggingheads.tv] was setting up crackpots with softball interviews that made them look reasonable, because their peculiar ideas were never confronted."
Matt Lewis (political analyst)
Matt Lewis is an American political analyst and reporter, currently with The Daily Caller.-Background and education:Lewis was raised in Myersville, Maryland. He is a graduate of Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia...
of The Daily Caller
The Daily Caller
The Daily Caller is a news website based in Washington, D.C., United States, with a focus on politics, original reporting and breaking news, founded by journalist and political pundit Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel, former adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney...
. Original host Conn Carroll of The Heritage Foundation
Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. Heritage's stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong...
stepped aside in early 2009. Guests who have appeared on the show are Armando Llorens (of Daily Kos
Daily Kos
Daily Kos is an American political blog that publishes news and opinions from a progressive point of view. It functions as a discussion forum and group blog for a variety of netroots activists, whose efforts are primarily directed toward influencing and strengthening the Democratic Party...
), Amanda Carpenter
Amanda Carpenter
Amanda B. Carpenter is an American author, political advisor, and speechwriter. She previously worked as a columnist for The Washington Times, and is the author of The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy's Dossier on Hillary Rodham Clinton.-Life and career:...
, and Nate Silver
Nate Silver
Nathaniel Read "Nate" Silver is an American statistician, psephologist, and writer. Silver first gained public recognition for developing PECOTA, a system for forecasting the performance and career development of Major League Baseball players, which he sold to and then managed for Baseball...
(of FiveThirtyEight) among many others.
"Values Added" is a weekly segment on the intersection between religion and politics.
History
November 1, 2005 is when the site launched, with Robert WrightRobert Wright (journalist)
Robert Wright is an American journalist, scholar, and prize-winning author of best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology, history, religion, and game theory, including The Evolution of God, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, The Moral Animal, and Three Scientists and Their Gods:...
and Mickey Kaus
Mickey Kaus
Robert Michael Kaus , better known as Mickey Kaus, is an American journalist, pundit, and author best known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on Slate until 2010. Kaus is the author of The End of Equality and had previously worked as a journalist for Newsweek, The...
being the only two initial participants in the video discussions. The site has since featured more than 250 other diavloggers.
On October 18, 2006, a site redesign was launched, with a revised home page and improved functionality: ability to comment on diavlogs was added,and to participate in forum discussions.
In January 2007, it was announced that cable TV pioneer and C-SPAN
C-SPAN
C-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...
founding chairman Bob Rosencrans, with a loose network of others, would become an angel investor
Angel investor
An angel investor or angel is an affluent individual who provides capital for a business start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity...
of Bloggingheads.tv. The infusion of cash
Money
Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
kicked off a dramatic expansion of the site's content, and a corresponding growth in viewers.
On March 24, 2007, in a diavlog between Garance Franke-Ruta
Garance Franke-Ruta
Garance Franke-Ruta is the politics editor of The Atlantic Online. Previously she was a national web politics editor for the Washington Post and a blogger for its WhoRunsGov site, a senior editor at the American Prospect and a senior writer at the Washington City Paper, D.C.'s alternative weekly...
and Ann Althouse
Ann Althouse
Ann Althouse is an American law professor and blogger. Raised in Newark and Wilmington, Delaware , Althouse has a degree in fine art from the University of Michigan, B.F.A. 1973, and graduated first in her class from New York University School of Law, J.D. 1981. She clerked for Judge Leonard B...
, Althouse became quite animated and angry (to the point of yelling) over a comment Franke-Ruta made (in reference to an earlier controversy involving Jessica Valenti and former US president Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
) referred to as an on air "meltdown" by some. This led to many blog posts and news stories in the following days on both the initial controversy and Althouse's on air behavior.
On October 13, 2007, a conversion to Flash format from the initial Windows Media format took place.
On October 24, 2007, Bloggingheads.tv entered into a relationship with the New York Times, whereby selected video segments from the Bloggingheads site would appear in the "Videos" section on the Times website, under the Opinion subsection.
On December 13, 2007, a site redesign took place which removed the familiar green pages in favor of a more "Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
"-look, featuring more user generated content, new navigation, new forum software for the "comments" section, and other updated features.
In 2008, several new segments and diavloggers were added or made more regular, including "Free Will", "This Week in Blog", and "UN Plaza". Other updates and tweaks to the site, such as the addition of the MP4 video format were also gradually phased in.
Media recognition
Traditional media outlets, such at the New York Times and others, have written mostly favorable reviews of Bloggingheads.tv. Stories are also often written about individuals who take part in the video discussions, as they are often well known individuals in the scientific, academic, journalism, or blogosphere community.The majority of coverage of the site, however, has been in the form of blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
coverage, sometimes on the form of the blog of the person participating in the Bloggingheads discussion, and sometimes in the form of other blogs.
Some events and personality appearances on Bloggingheads.tv have led to larger than usual amounts of media coverage, such as the March 24, 2007 Ann Althouse controversy described above, and the appearance of Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Michael Sullivan is an English author, editor, political commentator and blogger. He describes himself as a political conservative. He has focused on American political life....
on December 26, 2006 and January 1, 2007, when he discussed in the most clear terms up to that point his reversal of viewpoint on the Iraq war, and his plea of apology for supporting it in the first place.
"Diavlog"
The term "diavlog" (sometimes written "dia-vlog" by some bloggers) means a type of video blog (or "vlog") generally in which two peoplePeople
People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:* as the plural of person or a group of people People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:*...
participate, as contrasted with a (mono)vlog in which one contributor is featured. The word "diavlog" is a portmanteau of the phrase "dialog video weblog" (or, alternately, "video weblog dialog"). The diavlog format is most popular for political, world events, or other types of conversational video blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
discussions in which two (or more) people are actively participating in a real-time, give-and-take discussion of ideas.
The term "diavlog" was first adopted and put into wide use by Bloggingheads.tv contributors, (initially by Robert Wright
Robert Wright (journalist)
Robert Wright is an American journalist, scholar, and prize-winning author of best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology, history, religion, and game theory, including The Evolution of God, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, The Moral Animal, and Three Scientists and Their Gods:...
and Mickey Kaus
Mickey Kaus
Robert Michael Kaus , better known as Mickey Kaus, is an American journalist, pundit, and author best known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on Slate until 2010. Kaus is the author of The End of Equality and had previously worked as a journalist for Newsweek, The...
), though its original coinage is subject to debate. The term is widely used both by people on air, as well as commentors, to describe a specific conversation.
Although initially coined on the Bloggingheads site, the term has come to be used in other parts of the blogosphere
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
and among journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
s who frequently (or infrequently) participate in the encounters.
The term is sometimes spelled "diavlogue" by those outside the United States. (see: American and British English spelling differences
American and British English spelling differences
One of the ways in which American English and British English differ is in spelling.-Historical origins:In the early 18th century, English spelling was not standardized. Differences became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionaries...
)
Direct video linking ("dingalink") and embedding
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s, articles, email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
s, etc., have the aim of discussing only one segment of an entire video post. The term was named after Bloggingheads.tv's technical advisor Greg Dingle, who initially developed the technology.
On Bloggingheads.tv, direct linking is often useful in the discussion surrounding a specific "diavlog" to refer to a particular point (or points) in the discussion to clarify what is being commented on. The direct linking can be automatically generated from the Bloggingheads Flash video player, through the adjustment of the beginning and end of the video that one might want to display. (Start/End time can also be manually edited once the code is generated.)
Embedding of video is a feature that was added to Bloggingheads.tv in 2008 as a consequence of converting to Flash Video. It allows for bloggers and other websites to embed the video player into their blog or website so that the content can be viewed locally instead of the need to visit the actual Bloggingheads.tv site. This feature is similar to the YouTube and Google Video (among others) feature which had previously become prevalent on the internet.
Visual aids
Webcam
A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi.Their most popular use is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations. This common use as a video camera...
s to record the video used in the Bloggingheads.tv episodes, a variety of visual aids and enhancements are sometimes added to the program by the participants. Generally this takes the form of holding up book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s, newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s, or other objects that are being discussed to the camera, but sometimes it involves other, more exotic, items to either enhance a point or add something to the diavlog.
Mickey Kaus is particularly known for using visual aids such as mask
Mask
A mask is an article normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance or entertainment. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes...
s (of Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
, Laura Bush
Laura Bush
Laura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She has held a love of books and reading since childhood and her life and education have reflected that interest...
, and others), an Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter is an American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events and private events...
doll, and perhaps most recognizably, a stuffed moose
Moose
The moose or Eurasian elk is the largest extant species in the deer family. Moose are distinguished by the palmate antlers of the males; other members of the family have antlers with a dendritic configuration...
doll. According to Kaus, "deploying the moose" symbolizes Pinch Sulzberger
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. became the publisher of The New York Times in 1992 and chairman of the board of its owner, The New York Times Company, in 1997, succeeding his father, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger...
's idea of "the unaddressed important issue" similar to the "elephant in the room
Elephant in the room
"Elephant in the room" is an English metaphorical idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. The idiomatic expression also applies to an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss....
." Robert Wright has since received a stuffed moose of his own.
Also, various live animals (usually pets) have been displayed onscreen during the course of conversations. Wright has displayed his family pet, a poodle mix named Frazier, several times. (Frazier was popular enough to subsequently get his own Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
and Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
profiles.) Other people have had their cat displayed onscreen, such as that of Ana Marie Cox
Ana Marie Cox
Ana Marie Cox is an American author and blogger. The founding editor of the political blog Wonkette, she is currently the Washington correspondent for GQ and is The Guardian's lead blogger on US politics. She previously worked at Air America Media.-Early life:Cox was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico...
, John McWhorter
John McWhorter
John Hamilton McWhorter V is an American linguist and political commentator. He is the author of a number of books on language and on race relations. His linguistic specialty is creole and the process through which it forms.-Early life:...
, and Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Jacob Goldberg is an American conservative syndicated columnist and author. Goldberg is known for his contributions on politics and culture to , of which he is editor-at-large...
.
Other interesting onscreen visual aids that have been employed include the use of a kazoo
Kazoo
The kazoo is a wind instrument which adds a "buzzing" timbral quality to a player's voice when the player vocalizes into it. The kazoo is a type of mirliton, which is a membranophone, a device which modifies the sound of a person's voice by way of a vibrating membrane."Kazoo" was the name given by...
by Matt Welch
Matt Welch
Matt Welch is an American blogger, journalist, andlibertarian political pundit. Since 2008, he has been the editor-in-chief at the monthly libertarian journal, Reason. From 2006 to 2007, he was an editorial page editor for the Los Angeles Times...
, hats by various people (e.g. a Santa hat by Jonah Goldberg, and a New Years Day hat by Mickey Kaus
Mickey Kaus
Robert Michael Kaus , better known as Mickey Kaus, is an American journalist, pundit, and author best known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on Slate until 2010. Kaus is the author of The End of Equality and had previously worked as a journalist for Newsweek, The...
), and the display of a sextant
Sextant
A sextant is an instrument used to measure the angle between any two visible objects. Its primary use is to determine the angle between a celestial object and the horizon which is known as the altitude. Making this measurement is known as sighting the object, shooting the object, or taking a sight...
by Robert Farley in a discussion on pirates.
Contributors to Bloggingheads.tv
While many of the initial diavlogs featured Wright and Kaus exclusively, other regular participants at Bloggingheads.tv have grown to include many differing ideologies and viewpoints, politically, scientifically, and philosophicallyPhilosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
. Regular contributors include Ann Althouse
Ann Althouse
Ann Althouse is an American law professor and blogger. Raised in Newark and Wilmington, Delaware , Althouse has a degree in fine art from the University of Michigan, B.F.A. 1973, and graduated first in her class from New York University School of Law, J.D. 1981. She clerked for Judge Leonard B...
, Peter Beinart
Peter Beinart
-Early life and education:Beinart was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of South African immigrants. His mother, Doreen, works at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and his father, Julian Beinart, is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His stepfather is theatre...
, Rosa Brooks
Rosa Brooks
Rosa Brooks is a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. From April 2009 to June 2011, she served as Counselor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy, and in May 2010 she also became Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and then Special Coordinator for Rule...
, Jonathan Chait
Jonathan Chait
Jonathan Chait is a writer for New York magazine. He was previously a senior editor at The New Republic and a former assistant editor of The American Prospect. He also writes a periodic column in the Los Angeles Times.- Personal life :...
, David Corn
David Corn
David Corn is an American political journalist and author and the chief of the Washington bureau for Mother Jones. He has been Washington editor for The Nation and appeared regularly on FOX News, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and BloggingHeads.tv opposite James Pinkerton or other media...
, Ross Douthat
Ross Douthat
Ross Gregory Douthat is a conservative American author, blogger and New York Times columnist. He was a senior editor at The Atlantic and is author of Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class and, with Reihan Salam, Grand New Party , which David Brooks called the "best single...
, Daniel Drezner
Daniel Drezner
Daniel W. Drezner is currently a professor of international politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, the author of several books, the author of many Op-Ed pieces in major publications, a blogger, and a commentator.In 2005, he was denied tenure by the University of...
, Heather Hurlburt, John Horgan
John Horgan (American journalist)
John Horgan is an American science journalist best known for his 1996 book The End of Science. He has written for many publications, including Scientific American, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and IEEE Spectrum...
, Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Jacob Goldberg is an American conservative syndicated columnist and author. Goldberg is known for his contributions on politics and culture to , of which he is editor-at-large...
, Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein is a liberal American blogger and columnist for The Washington Post, columnist for Bloomberg, a columnist for Newsweek, and a contributor to MSNBC...
, Eli Lake
Eli Lake
Eli Lake , is a national security correspondent for the Washington Times and a frequent contributor to the Bloggingheads.tv. He was previously a national security reporter at the New York Sun and the State Department correspondent for the UPI...
, Glenn Loury
Glenn Loury
Glenn Cartman Loury is an American academic and author. He is the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Brown University.- Early years :...
, Megan McArdle
Megan McArdle
Megan McArdle is a Washington, D.C.-based blogger and journalist. She writes mostly about economics, finance and government policy from a moderate libertarian or classical liberal perspective. She currently serves as the business and economics editor, as well as a blogger, for The Atlantic. She is...
, John McWhorter
John McWhorter
John Hamilton McWhorter V is an American linguist and political commentator. He is the author of a number of books on language and on race relations. His linguistic specialty is creole and the process through which it forms.-Early life:...
, James Pinkerton
James Pinkerton
James Pinkerton is a columnist, author, and political analyst. A graduate of Peter Vanleslie High School and Stanford University, he served on the White House staff under both Ronald Reagan and George H.W...
, Mark Schmitt
Mark Schmitt
Mark Schmitt is an American political scientist and author, and executive editor of The American Prospect, who focuses upon tax and budget policies and the history and role of ideas in politics. He primarily writes, amongst other numerous articles for popular newspapers, a column called 'The Out...
and Matthew Yglesias, among many others.
Apart from the regular contributors, a host of well known occasional guests have appeared, usually in the form of being interviewed. Among others, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama is an American political scientist, political economist, and author. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. Before that he served as a professor and director of the International Development program at the School of...
talked about his book America at the Crossroads; the Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg
Gershom Gorenberg
Gershom Gorenberg is an American-born Israeli historian, journalist and blogger, specializing in Middle Eastern politics and the interaction of religion and politics. He is currently a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, a monthly American political magazine...
discussed his book The Accidental Empire (about the history of the settlements); the Washington Post columnist Joel Achenbach
Joel Achenbach
Joel Leroy Achenbach is an American staff writer for the Washington Post and the author of seven books, including A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea, The Grand Idea, Captured by Aliens, It Looks Like a President only Smaller, and three compilations of his former syndicated newspaper column "Why...
on an article of his about global-warming skeptics (among other topics); Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Michael Sullivan is an English author, editor, political commentator and blogger. He describes himself as a political conservative. He has focused on American political life....
on his book The Conservative Soul; biogerentologist Aubrey de Grey
Aubrey de Grey
Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey is an English author and theoretician in the field of gerontology, and the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Foundation. He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Rejuvenation Research, author of The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging and co-author...
on how to defeat the "disease" of aging; philosopher David Chalmers
David Chalmers
David John Chalmers is an Australian philosopher specializing in the area of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, whose recent work concerns verbal disputes. He is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University...
; Nate Silver
Nate Silver
Nathaniel Read "Nate" Silver is an American statistician, psephologist, and writer. Silver first gained public recognition for developing PECOTA, a system for forecasting the performance and career development of Major League Baseball players, which he sold to and then managed for Baseball...
(of FiveThirtyEight.com
FiveThirtyEight.com
FiveThirtyEight is a polling aggregation website with a blog created by Nate Silver. Sometimes colloquially referred to as 538 dot com or just 538, the website takes its name from the number of electors in the United States electoral college...
); and Craig Venter
Craig Venter
John Craig Venter is an American biologist and entrepreneur, most famous for his role in being one of the first to sequence the human genome and for his role in creating the first cell with a synthetic genome in 2010. Venter founded Celera Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Research and the J...
, director of the Human Genome Project
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...
, who spoke of future scientific innovations he is currently pursuing.
See also
- Digital televisionDigital televisionDigital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
- Flash Video
- Interactive televisionInteractive televisionInteractive television describes a number of techniques that allow viewers to interact with television content as they view it.- Definitions :...
- Internet televisionInternet televisionInternet television is the digital distribution of television content via the Internet...
- Mickey KausMickey KausRobert Michael Kaus , better known as Mickey Kaus, is an American journalist, pundit, and author best known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on Slate until 2010. Kaus is the author of The End of Equality and had previously worked as a journalist for Newsweek, The...
- Robert WrightRobert Wright (journalist)Robert Wright is an American journalist, scholar, and prize-winning author of best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology, history, religion, and game theory, including The Evolution of God, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, The Moral Animal, and Three Scientists and Their Gods:...
- Video blog
- Video on demandVideo on demandVideo on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...
- Video podcastVideo podcastVideo podcast is a term used for the online delivery of video on demand video clip content via Atom or RSS enclosures...
- Web TVWeb TVWeb TV may refer to:* MSN TV , a thin client which uses a television for display and the online service that supports it* Web television, an emerging genre of digital entertainment...
- WebcastWebcastA webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...