By almost any measure, the first Right Online conference, as part of the Defending the American Dream summit in Austin, TX, has to be judged a success.

The organizers of the event weren’t sure quite what to expect. How many bloggers and new media folks would attend? On the first day the summit organizers had to rely on special support given by the hotel because initially there were not enough lunches available…there were so many more people in attendance than they had expected or even hoped.

Later in September a second Right Online summit will happen in New Jersey, followed by a national summit in Washington, DC on October 10-11.

In a key way the conservative movement is behind the curve, both parison with the progressive political movement and the Christian munity, but better late than never. While this year’s summits are the first of their kind and scope amongst political conservatism, last year the Acton Institute was a sponsor of GodblogCon, a conference for Christian bloggers and new media professionals and hobbyists. This year we’ll be supporting the fourth annual GodblogCon to be held in Las Vegas, NV on September 20-21.

The Acton Institute is an important bridge between these oft-overlapping constituencies. It’s our hope that through greater involvement with the conservative movement we can bring the importance of religious and moral formation to the forefront of that discussion, and that through our engagement with the Godbloggers we can broaden the influence and profile of religious new media. (Here’s a brief flashback from last year’s GodblogCon that gets at how these two phenomena intersect: “Giuliani and the Godbloggers.”)

As is so often the case, politics gets plenty of mainstream press coverage, while religion gets short shrift. Perhaps we can start to change that from both sides, showing how religion is an important aspect of responsible prehensive political coverage, and how religion itself is worthy of more and better press attention. Here’s a sample of old media coverage of this first Right Online summit:

Laylan Copelin, “Conservative convention adds ponent,” Austin American-Statesman, 11 July 2008.Jose Antonio Vargas, “In Texas, the Right Boots Up to Gain Strength Online,” Washington Post, 18 July 2008.Amy Schatz, “In Online Politicking, Republicans Play Catch-Up,” The Wall Street Journal, 18 July 2008.Kate Phillips, “Texas Boot Camp for Bloggers on the Right,” The New York Times, 18 July 2008.Kate Phillips and Michael Falcone, “The Early Word: ‘Tex Roots’,” The New York Times, 18 July 2008.