Saturday, March 17, 2007
Hello there!
I am currently taking a course with the University of South Australia. This blog is done up Assignment 3 of my Document Design and Publication module.
The purpose of this blog, is to discuss issues related to "blogging" itself. I will be adopting a less formal and conversational tone of voice in this blog.
{ Definition }
So what is a blog? According to Dictionary.com, "(it is) A website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings."
{ The Phenomenon }
According to BlogPulse, there are more than 42 million blogs up to date and this number just keeps growing. Blogging is a subjective term, because different people uses blog differently.
Blogs started as online personal journals. The use of it has evolved greatly, but at the end of it, blogs are so popular because it provided a space for people for voice and expression. It no longer take advance IT knowledge to build a page online. Topics for blog include current affairs and political commentaries, IT product reviews, a hobby-related topic etc. The possibilities are endless.
Thus blogging communities begin to form when bloggers (people who blogs) of similar interest find each other, commonly through search engines such as BlogPulse and Technorati.
{ Blog vs Website }
Since blog posts and links are updated frequently and commonly displayed chronologically, it is different from a website. The commenting feature on blogs created more than just a space for blog readers to air their view. It allows conversation, between reader and blog writer and also among readers to exchange opinions. Websites generally refer to their visitors through emails and other contact details provided on a page.
The most common issue about blogging as a new media is it's conflict with journalism. Some classify blogging as "a form of new online journalism" (Deuze1 2001). In fact some reputable news source such as The Guardian has a blog. It is quite interesting to see traditional media(website) linking to readers through a new media channel. I believe it serves to attract a whole new group of readers.
This new media has also allowed net users to play the role of reporters and journalists within their community. These posts tend to include personal opinions and are of niche topics unlike the real journalists.
I believe the influence of blogging has plenty of room for expansion. Bloggers can now share information through more than 1 channel with the advance of technology. In a media report by ABC Radio National, Jennifer Wilson, director of a mobile content publishing company, has commented mobile users can now take pictures with their camera phones and post an entry anywhere, anytime. And it is not just pictures. Bloggers can post audio files and videos.
The possibilities to blogging are almost infinite. This phenomenon is here to stay for sure.
1 - Mark Deuze is lecturer and research associate at the Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), The Netherlands. His article HERE.