So for my final paper, I have decided to use the work I have been doing for my capstone project in politics, more specifically by looking at political blogs (still in the process of choosing one or two specific blogs to focus on which are representative of political blogs in general)… how do conversations unfold, how does the interface assist in the forming of conversations or hinder the progress of political discourse, as well as taking specific theories (structuralism, primarily) to assist in the development of an argument for redesigning political blog interfaces. I have a rough idea for a concept (working title, the “Sweet Spot”) which is a type of blogging environment meets game where individuals participating in political discourse work to move their conversations into a place of understanding or consensus. The inspiration comes from some general charactersitics of political blogs that I have noticed:

* either everyone participating has similiar or the exact same viewpoints

* or the conversations progress into flame wars and arguments because the people participating have very different viewpoints on the political issue being discussed

After meeting with Tyler and Aaron, I have a bit more direction for this paper… I will look at two political blogs and do a structuralism analysis of them.  Within this structuralism analysis, I will talk about Manovich’s 5 principles of new media and how they relate to blogging interfaces.  From there, I hope to do a comparison of the two structural analyses. Finally, through the structural analysis and comparison/critique of my two chosen blogs, I hope that I can generate design insights, possibly for my sweetspot concept.  I welcome any comments/critiques/concerns from any of you!