Blogs are just Blogs
According to The Observer, blogs are here to stay. John Naughton reports on the implications bloggers have on journalism. I myself blog, but I do not consider myself a journalist. I think of my blog as me pointing my readers to interesting stories that reflect my research, academic and personal interests. You will occassionally see a commentary on a story, but I’m just a voice of millions that are doing the same thing. I find this blog as a nice supplement to my personal website, janet news.com.
Again, I go back to James Carey’s theory, ritual of communication. The Internet is a source for people to publish instantly. The Internet lets people give the media feedback instantly. The media was once considered one-way communication, well, not anymore. The Internet now allows the media to be a two-way communication vehicle and that freaks out many journalists, TV execs and I’m sure the film industry.
But, John Naughton gets it right when he says, don’t consider ALL blogs journalism. Click here to read the article. AND, he points out that blogs are not going anywhere. It’s a venue to take part in the conversation. Also, blogs are easy to maintain, which makes it much easier for the non-Internet savvy person to publish their ideas. And, the small percentage that ARE creating credible journalistic content, well, take a look at their credenitals, they ARE journalists. Remember humans love to communicate and just as you talk over the watercooler at work or chit chat over coffee in starbucks, blogs are a virutal community that allows people to vent, editorialize and create grassroots journalism. It’s no different as what I observed from the 17th and 18th century coffeehouses where each coffeehouse catered to different types of industries… yes, the monarchy didn’t like the spreading of the news, but look how that turned out!
