“The Sprint,” an online blog about the 2008 election and the most recent creation of the UCLA Newsroom, is exclusively written by several noted UCLA faculty members and graduate students.
The blog, which began in September, is named “The Sprint” because it reflects the “eight-week dash to the Nov. 4 elections,” said Kevin Roderick, director of UCLA Newsroom.
Roderick said the idea for a blog came from a discussion in the UCLA external communications group in order to broaden news media and was also fueled by a successful UCLA Newsroom blog about the Olympics.
Ten faculty members, including political science Professor Lynn Vavreck and Dean of the UCLA School of Public Affairs Franklin Gilliam, as well as two graduate students, have already contributed blog entries throughout the 2008 presidential campaign.
Ryan Enos, a political science graduate student and a regular contributor to “The Sprint,” said he chooses to blog when he comes across an important issue in the election to which he can bring scholarly analysis.
Roderick said the point of the blog is to give UCLA faculty experts an opportunity to express their views about the election in a large forum.
“We hope to … find another avenue that gets the great work done by UCLA scholars out and into national conversations about the election,” Roderick said.
Paul Ong, a professor in the School of Public Affairs and a contributor to “The Sprint,” said the blog is unique because it provides commentary from experts as opposed to individuals who have not necessarily devoted time to studying the issues involved in the election.
But Ong said this has mixed consequences for the overall quality of the blog.
“It’s a positive because it is based on analysis and research. Where it may fall short is that quite often politics in the campaign is emotional and passionate and I think those two sets of qualities do not overlap (in the blog),” Ong said.
But Enos said more and more people are turning to blogs as a source of information and that the very nature of a blog is really beneficial because it helps readers critically analyze the election.
Enos added that the comment feature of the blog allows for a more specific type of discourse.
Readers can post comments to which the specific blogger will respond.
“Anytime somebody reads something the first time through, they are looking at it through their own partisan lens. And then they can enter the discussion and ask questions. … Rather than a one-sided dialogue, you can really enter into a conversation,” Enos said.