Blogging and Journalism, Cracking the Myth
Posted: August 20, 2006 at 8:07 pm | 1 Comment
It is easy to create myths–and can take decades or centuries to destroy them. The link between blogging and journalism is one of them. It is not all that hard to see that there is no direct relationship between keep a blog and the news industry. Nonetheless this is one of the founding myths of the US-American A-list bloggers and their fellow travellers (as they were called in the Cold War 1950s) who mindlessly copy-paste the hegemonic preassumptions. A recent Pew Internet report clearly gives a much more diffuse picture:
- 54% of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44% say they have published elsewhere.
- 54% of bloggers are under the age of 30.
- Women and men have statistical parity in the blogosphere, with women representing 46% of bloggers and men 54%.
- 76% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others.
- 64% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to share practical knowledge or skills with others.
When asked to choose one main subject, 37% of bloggers say that the primary topic of their blog is “my life and experiences.”
- Other topics ran distantly behind: 11% of bloggers focus on politics and government; 7% focus on entertainment; 6% focus on sports; 5% focus on general news and current events; 5% focus on business; 4% on technology; 2% on religion, spirituality or faith; and additional smaller groups who focus on a specific hobby, a health problem or illness, or other topics.
The picture is clear. Only a minority of bloggers see any kind of relationship with journalism. Most blogs deal with personal experiences, and do not focus on the news media, even less on politics. It is a vocal minority of US-American A-list bloggers who constantly misrepresent the image of blogging and push blogging into their direction. As a matter of fact, a blog is first of all easy to use software and should be regarded the next generation home page. It is a general platform, serving general purposes. There is no intrinsic relationship between blogging and news, but it’s going to be a long uphill struggle to get this simple message through.
September 24th, 2006 at 9:08 pm (#)
re: blogging and journalism
Would say that in massive blogging expansion the greatest percentage would go to people who would not understand the importance of the network feedback by which I reason as 2. *two*
1: an instant default network feedback -> emotional and intellectual experience of ‘getting; it published’ even though no replies are submitted nor it matters anyone read , simply the network works in that way it would give a feedback to you simply by interacting with the machine and sharing ‘your personalized data’ over the network
2. information relevance feedback.
The latter one have been testing with my crew (ADF/RU). We would go to skype and make a conference connecting continents in short. Then, I would start ranting about how I strongly support Hamas and know people from Hamas (hamsa) since living near Bosnia. Disconnection (even on skype which is known to be a VOIP, anti corp tool situated god knows where in the Pacific) happens rapidly.
No need to mention tryin to debate over how I got into Islam over politics. Disconnection happens before you even finish to type Hamas, round letter M.
So , these blatant examples are to show the information relevance. To shock is the way to get your google results higher. Other than that, you may try linking your page to visited websites, though, relating to journalism, had to agree less than 5% is journalism as such, the percentage may rise since some bloggers ‘got into’ the role of being journalist mostly copy-pasting things not even reading them or analyzing (which, of course, demands more work than simply splashing some info out there and lookin yourself inthe mirror trying out your new shirt ‘n’ fake glasses.’
Speaking from my personal experience, had a blog on rootsE7 server , eastLondon, writing mostly politics (balkans) + being derranged as I am posting photographs and since being radical the website got taken once more. (it usualy got taken off every month or 2, last time February this year after following the former croatian prime-minister ‘sack’ with my provocative satire cartoon-style erotic drama ‘it won’t suck itself’ which contained txt plus webcam shots of myself strippin an’… basicaly, puttin my c**k out and that bout it. nothin pornographic innit since webcam pretty blurry and was bit faraway, tho since still saddlin a pony each morning (wheelchair) the holly light of Vatican (local/croatian office) might have somethin gainst’ it.
However, blogging is positive, to say in closure.
No argue bout that. Only that, if you get into blogging after seein’ a shiny tv-ad abuot the new flat screen and keyboards, wouldnt say it’s the right way of deciding to start writing a blog.
And, of course, it IS the right way since the telecom corps are rubbing their hands with each blogger out there having a mirror bible there.
There’s no, I put ma arm in fire, there’s no proper education on tech relating to humanities (in case you include journalism here), yet all you get is IT students expansion (specialy in EastBlock) as I’ve mentioned on Joi Ito’s weblog putting a comment on his trip to Shangai (where it happens as well).
Got one problem though, I bloody type too much, can’t help it somehow, hecka miss programming, unfortunately over here not only I know nothing about programming, I’m considered to be a derranged mental with no computer knowledge which I’m gratefull to.
ciao
dial M for murder : p