Shifting to Blogs

This week’s reading Next-Generation Media: The Global Shift, provides insight into the Internet’s progression to becoming a new platform for conventional and traditional forms of medium. Blogs, a type of online journal, provide users an outlet to publish their own content. Essentially making everyone who participates amateur journalists a.k.a bloggers. They are relatively easy and inexpensive to start and maintain and are a popular and successful form of individual expression where anyone can create and interact in. The topics of blogs are limitless, providing even the smallest or most unique niche to have a voice online. They encourage and foster participation versus just a presentation. They are pioneering a new way to spread information. And they are giving traditional established print media a run for their money. Ultimately, blogs have given regular people a voice and provide them with a wider variety of content from traditionally unlikely sources.

So what makes blogs so popular? So successful? Perhaps it is my technical background which never required me to produce many papers (if any) during college or writing material for any of my work experiences. So when I read print and online material, content falls into two categories for me: easy to read (conversational with easy to slightly elevated language) and not so easy to read (slightly elevated to highly elevated language). I think that for the most part, the average person tends to fall into the first category. And any above average person can understand that level of reading as well. Blogs tend to fall into that first category. So because they are typically written by regular people (non-journalists) and you usually read blogs written by writers who share a common interest with yourself, it adds to a sense of “we-ness”; Not only can you understand and maybe even have a common language, you identify more with the writer and have an initial feeling of community which may lead you to reading that blog more often, suggesting it to other people, and adding your own comments. This type of identification and interaction provides a more intimate and personal relationship with the process of content creation and consumption.

In contrast, traditional print media when compared to blogs can sometimes appear to be “from the establishment” and create a detachment from the reader. Certain media producers can be associated with specific views with possible persuasive undertones. And while newspaper and magazine articles are written by journalists who take great care to produce a well written piece, presenting their writings in a platform where there is no opportunity for the reader to participate interactively stops short of what the present day reader has had a taste of online and now craves.

Yesterday, I read a New York Times article which linked to a blog that I was interested in reading. It was about a man who went to Iraq to write about what was going on there. He never intended to be a journalist or even a blogger, but it appears he has become both. So what drew me to his blog? Common interest about what is going on in Iraq. What made me trust him initially? He was former military, in the middle of the action (literally) and appeared to be critical of everyone, taking no sides. I have read many articles about Iraq, primarily in the first year or two of the U.S. being there. But reading his personal stories (particularly this older post), seeing the graphic photos, and reading his take on things, resonated more with me because of my personal experience with this topic. He was an ordinary person, sharing a common interest with me, presenting it in a way that appealed to me, and provoked me to think… and think… and think. This is something traditionally done with established print media. But during the next media global shift, a blog written by a common person, in common everyday language, is accomplishing just as much, if not more with very little startup funding (if any) and a low maintenance. If the print media is to stay relevant, they will need to put their thinking caps on, go online, and perhaps, start a blog of their own.