The Huffington Post: Typifying Contemporary America via the Internet

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/


The Huffington Post is an American news website and content aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti in May 2005. The site is home to coverage on commentary on topics ranging from the likes of current affairs, politics, entertainment and sport as well as slightly offbeat ones such as divorce. It is home to almost 9000 bloggers made up of politicians, celebrities, academics and industry experts that cover all variety of subjects. This is what makes the Huffington Post the typification of contemporary America. The site is of as much use to an academic doing research as it is to a teenager looking up the latest movie news and is therefore indicative of contemporary America's diversity of interests.

The Huffington Post was named the world's most powerful blog by The Observer in 2008 and in 2009, co-founder Arianna Huffington was 12th in the Forbes' Most Influential Women in Media list. The sterling reputation and popularity of the site convinced AOL to fork out $315 million to acquire it in April 2011, once again typifying America in the capitalism and consumerism behind the purchase.

E! Online reflecting the state of contemporary America.

http://uk.eonline.com/

E! Online is a website run by E! Entertainment Television, and provides up-to-the-minute entertainment news and celebrity inside information. E! Entertainment Television is a 24 hour network “dedicated to the world of entertainment” and is available to “97 million cable and satellite subscribers in the United States”, as well as to a global audience – including the UK.
E! Online was launched in August 1996 as “the comprehensive entertainment news website” and today has more than 20,000 entertainment news stories archived on the site. This makes it a self-confessed “unparalleled resource for celebrity-driven entertainment information”.
I chose this website because for me it typifies the state of contemporary America. I think E! Online reflects a strong aspect of contemporary American society and culture, which is now more than ever driven by a consumerism that is exported around the world through United States soft power. A website dedicated to the entertainment industry (one of America’s biggest exports) and its focus on the success, wealth and fashion of the celebrities involved sells an identity which has become sought after in many Western cultures and can be recognised as American.
For me it is not America’s hard power, such as its military or economy, which makes it strong today, but the selling of this cultural identity and soft power, which allows it to keep its status as a global hegemon.