I'm blogging again from the Netroots Nation conference in Austin, Texas, and continue to be impressed with how my fellow participants have jumped on this technology as a means of expressing ideas, opinions, and general information that might not have otherwise been available. As the conference has progressed, I have a deeper appreciation for how the Internet, including the blogosphere, has helped us connect with each other, even at the international level, almost instantaneously.

As I mentioned in parts one and two of this series, there’s power in funding your own movement and in having a broad base of support. When we support our own projects, we get to decide what we work on and our continued existence becomes less dependent on any single source.

As part of walking the walk here, we’re now accepting blogads in the sidebar of the YP4 Blog. We’re screening them for congruence with our values. Nonprofits, progressive blogs and socially responsible businesses? Absolutely. Soulless corporations? Not so much.

We intend blog advertising to become another intentional way to build our network and strengthen our partnerships.

Jeremy Bearer-Friend, a YP4 Leadership Academy fellow currently with Justice Now, just posted to Feministing:

Prisons are bad for everyone--not just for the people in cages within them, not just for the children who have lost their parents to them, or the social programs who have their budgets cut because of them.

Prisons distract us from the root causes of violence and ultimately exacerbate the deeply entrenched challenges of racism, sexism and transphobia facing our communities.

You’re voting tomorrow, riiiight? (If your primary hasn’t already happened, of course.) Here’s a chance to engage in some citizen journalism.

Blog the youth vote! Post to the YP4 Blog about get-out-the-vote efforts on your campus, how the vote is playing out where you are, what you saw when you went to the polls, whether you were able to vote... you get the idea.

Adam Conner, a 2006 YP4 Fellow who appeared on the Building a Progressive Youth Movement panel at YearlyKos, posted today about the Kossacks Under 35 series and Mike Connery’s question:

How can the progressive youth movement form stronger ties with the progressive blogosphere?

As the progressive blogosphere grows, so does the debate about its role, its influence and its relationship with the mainstream media. While there is enormous potential for advancing a progressive agenda, this burgeoning phenomenon provides a unique opportunity for expanding participatory democracy. Yet, while there is potential, there are still major hurdles to crossing the digital divide and answering questions about access and diversity.

Lakshmi Chaudhry has an excellent article in The Nation
today about the role of the blogosphere. Chaudhry was one of the featured panelists on March 2nd for a discussion co-sponsored by Demos, The Republic of Blogs: New Media and Democracy at the Andrew Heiskell Center for Democracy at People For the American Way Foundation's Northeast Regional Office.

As this blog community grows, I am very interested to hear everyone's thoughts on the blogosphere and democratic participation.

Andy