The importance of blogs in anchoring/framing and building metaphor

There are three big debates right now that will help shape or kill everything we care about.

• What is the internet?
• Who owns it and how do we pay for it?
• What about the stuff that touches it, whatever it is, and how do we pay for that stuff?

I have taken part in many discussions on this and related issues, covering the web, telcos and cablecos, big media and music and film, copyright, intellectual property right and now digital right.

And all the debates boil down in the end to the words and images we use. if we are to protect what we care for, we need better arguments, better metaphors, better anchors and frames. And blogs are great tools to do just that.

Recent discussions about opensource and internet and the iTunes decision in France have only served to bring this out more glaringly to me.

So here’s another to throw into the pot: Dana Blankenhorn asking about the internet, following on from some posts in a separate “Cook Report conversation”. Well worth a read, just to see how much imagery matters.

Are we moving to a time when sticks and stones will hurt us less than words? Are we already there?