Few would argue with the contention that this years’ federal election contained a collection of pretty uninspiring candidates. The dominant conclusion drawn from the August campaign by media figures and analysts (as well as a few bitter, defeated candidates) generally stated that both Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott were utterly bereft of policy, devoid of personality and overly focused on negativity.

But if one adheres to this common conception of the election campaign, one must also consider the medium through which us voters attained most of our knowledge on, and opinions of, federal political candidates. During the campaign the mass media did nothing but foster a political climate that valued political gamesmanship over policy, snark and gossip over personality and negativity over positivity.

So-called ‘faceless men’, cabinet-leakers and budgie smugglers are not representative of the problems within Australian federal politics per se, rather they are symptoms of a wider endemic that infects the mass media that covers them.

The 2010 Australian federal election has too-often devolved into a media circus. Consider the view of the doyen of Australian political journalism, Laurie Oakes, who has expressed his frustration at this set of circumstances. He criticized his own employer after it hired volatile former Opposition Leader Mark Latham to produce a stunt-story for its flagship 60 Minutes program.

Oakes broke several large stories during the campaign, the most notable of these were the anonymous ALP cabinet leaks that many within the party are blaming for the massive swing to the Coalition. He discussed how the coverage of the election has focused on “anything, it seems, except the remarkable success that is the Australian economy. Issues such as Gillard’s earlobes and marital status and lack of religion. Gangs and knife crime. WorkChoices”. This, he contended, effectively removed the spotlight from the ALP’s decisive action during the global financial crisis that, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, was “probably the best-designed stimulus program in the world”.

So firstly, how can the public ever expect to glean a fair and representative view of their prospective leaders if the service they rely upon for information has so utterly mislaid its priorities? And secondly, what are some alternative sources of news and information that may give a better view of actual policy, without the sideshow of distractions and non-sequiturs?

The political blogosphere is Australia is not yet as pervasive as it is in countries such as the US and the UK. However, it represents a paradigm shift in the political media-scape, by lowering the barriers to audience participation and catering to niche audiences. No matter what your political priorities are, chances are there’ll be a blog specifically devoted to them.

Blogs such as Possum Comitatus, Larvatus Prodeo, The Stump, Grog’s Gamut, Pollytics and Ambit Gambit have provided some of the most meticulous coverage of the 2010 federal election. Through the tracking several blogs during the course of the election, it is clear that they are performing three distinct functions, often simultaneously.

They collate and aggregate news from multiple sources; mass media, other blogs, press releases and the social networking sphere, in this way acting as a kind of content ‘hub’. Secondly, they translate policy detail, polling data and trends from a certain perspective or ideological standpoint, as their ‘narrow-cast’ format makes it easier for them to occupy a certain niche among the constituency. Finally, they keep an eye on the mass media and call it to account when required, much like the ABC’s Media Watch.

Of course, there are areas where political bloggers are less strong when covering stories. Many media theorists contend that they promote what are known as segmented communities, where people are grouped together based on shared prejudices. They will say that mass media, for all its faults, at least encourages people to take in ideas that may differ from their own. Blogs don’t necessarily do this. Furthermore, blogs seldom break political stories, and their low-key, grassroots nature means they seldom get enough attention in Australia to justify a politician to grant them an interview. The breaking of news, and the interviewing of public figures, is still well and truly the domain of their big brothers in the mass media.

So where does that leave us? It seems to me that the best way forward is to stop seeing mass media and the blogosphere as rivals with competing interests. There needs to be a more collaborative atmosphere, a symbiotic relationship that benefits both groups and therefore the general public. A media sphere of ‘two-tiers’, as proposed by Herbert Gans appears to be the answer. I encourage you, the reader, to have a look at the political blogosphere and help make this idea a reality.