According to the introduction of Blog! by Dan Burnstein, entitled “From Cave Painting to Wonkettes: A Short History of Blogging,” the modern marvel of blogging is merely a reincarnation of past trends of the common man’s need to express opinion, explain and defend it. This need applies to both trivial but also profound matters. Reflection and therefore greater understanding of the “big picture” can be achieved on some level through such expression, accounting for why it is done to such a vast degree.
Burnstein goes into historical detail, discussing cavemen, da Vinci, and Revolutionary War pamphleteers, which all solidify his point. He is taking a broad concept and attempting to analyze it through clear perspective.
In terms of the general points he makes, I agree with his assertions that blogging is neither trendy nor fleeting, but will endure and continue to expand. It is obviously a rapidly growing entity and more people will begin to take advantage of the powers they can plausibly obtain through the action of blogging.
In the section titled, “I Blog, Therefore I Am,” by David Kline, I found the statistics about newspapers particularly unsurprising.
“54 percent of American households read a newspaper, down from 80 percent in 1964… Gallop poll of teenagers, only 28 percent said they had read a newspaper the previous day.”
People below a certain age simply would not choose to sit down and explore a newspaper. As a journalism major, genuinely interested in current events, I shamefully admit that I force myself to read one about once a week. To me, they are far too large and flimsy and I get frustrated when I can’t get them to crease back to a neat state.
I gather the majority of my news throughout the day online, but also on TV and occasionally on the radio. I certainly would never rely on a blog to inform me of breaking news, but as more of an entertaining commentary or analytical banter.
Being a member of the small percentage of my age group that does ingest news and somewhat valuable information, I think this is a revealing sign of the inevitably gradual decrease in the number of newspapers that will be sold and the surge in competitiveness among news blogs and Web sites.
I concur with the section’s assessment that magazines will prevail for many years to come as it says, “more than 352 million magazines were sold in the United States last year.” Magazines appeal to readers on a special interest level and take an analytical approach to a specific aspect of society, culture, business, etc.
In regards to the “proper” media and its future life span, I believe that it is safe to assume that there will continue to be a clear distinction between journalists who do extensive research, interviews, and narrow down bulk for the intent of clarity and the broad and all encompassing blogosphere, which contains some valid opinions and perspective but doesn’t hold the same level of merit.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I also agreed with the authors when they stated that blogs will continue to be around for a long time but that they will not take over. I see where you are coming from when you say that blogs are only commentary because as a younger generation we tend to see them more in entertainment. Although I do believe that blogs can be serious. For example the authors mentioned the blogs of the 2004 presidential election and how these blogs affected the election. I think that there are people who put serious work into them and do enough research in order to make a difference. I agree with you that blogs don’t have the same kind of reputation that the media holds and that is why the media will still be powerful. I also see where you are coming from when you say that people will stop buying newspapers because I myself don’t buy newspapers. I get my news primarily online and sometimes on television. Although I think newspapers will keep being around for a long time because we still have an older generation reading them.
I couldn't agree more that sometimes it's hard to sit down & look at news sometimes, espicially in newspapers. I remember reading the statistic about household newspaper readers going down from 80% to 54%, but I think that t is misleading. I just think that people aer turning to online sources instead. Our generation is more technical than the previous and there are also more news options for us.
I also think that blogs will become part of the news but I don't think that people will ever turn to reading blogs more than accredited news stations. The only downfall for blogs is that you don't knw who's writing them, so it's hard to take most of them seriously.
Good post. You engage the subject matter well and add your perspective.
Do keep in mind that young people have NEVER read the newspaper. That's not a new phenomenon. And hardly representative of what's going on in the convergent and emergent format wars.
Your final paragraph raises more questions than it answers:
"In regards to the 'proper' media and its future life span, I believe that it is safe to assume that there will continue to be a clear distinction between journalists who do extensive research, interviews, and narrow down bulk for the intent of clarity and the broad and all encompassing blogosphere, which contains some valid opinions and perspective but doesn’t hold the same level of merit."
Why?
What "merit"? What does it look like? How is it measured?
Be specific.
Post a Comment