U.K.: NATO and Russia

Nosemonkey's EUtopia blog shows the advantages blogs can have over traditional media in a post this week about the NATO summit currently in progress in Bucharest. The blog begins by summarizing the varied and contradictory viewpoints being offered by other media outlets (a mix of newspapers, radio, and a blog) about the goings-on at the summit. The blogger has the luxury of having the time to step back away from the deadlines of those working for larger media outlets and examine the coverage to determine that it is inconsistent. He also acknowledges that his confusion about what's happening at the NATO summit is likely to persist, saying, "[T]he precise terms of any diplomatic agreement between Russia and the EU, US, NATO or individual European countries - the small print that the journalists rarely have time to scan in their rush to hit deadlines and get an angle that gives the subs a good shot at an interesting headline - that’s where we’ll first spot the changes when they come." As a blogger and an EU policy fanatic (the Wonkette of the EU, one might argue), Nosemonkey is someone who is likely to spot these details if he has access to the relevant documents. All of this analysis of the news that is, for the most part, the unique domain of the blogger allows Nosemonkey to provide a meta-narrative for the news that draws attention to its varied frames.

The irony of the situation is that the writer of Nosemonkey's EUtopia is also exhibiting a rather blatant frame, albeit one disclosed on the "About" section of the blog, which is that of being a pro-EU centrist. After the blogger acknowledges his confusion from trying to follow news of the summit, he turns to his own predictions of how the summit must actually be turning out by spending several paragraphs discussing Russia's increasing influence exerted over the EU. What begins as a discussion of current developments in foreign diplomacy ends in speculation over the future of European international relations, but it is a future colored through the lens of the Cold War relationships that Nosemonkey continues to bring up in this post and rework to suit his purposes (i.e., to provide an explanation of why NATO is having a hard time deciding whether to admit other member nations).