JN 229 Entry #9: “Blogging, The Nihilist Impulse"

Blogging has become such a social norm in the last decade that it is now described through the term “blog culture”. The idea is that blogging has its whole own culture and identity that belongs uniquely to the world of internet blogs.

Blogs allow for a wide variety of opinions and voices to be heard. Blogging is defined as “a website containing the writer’s or group of writers’ own experiences, observations, opinions etc., and often having images and links to other websites” (dictionary.com). Blogging is becoming a major phenomenon in our society, with the amount of blogs created doubling every few months (BBC News). BBC News did a study of blogs and the type of information that people post. They found that “the blogsphere is highly varied, with blogs coming in many shapes and forms...” (BBC News). Blogs are used as campaign sites, personal diaries, art projects, online magazines, news sites and as a place for community networking. People like that they can subscribe to blogs for free and stay updated with any news posts automatically. BBC News found that “blogs have played a part in highlighting issues that journalists have not covered. They have also proved to be a valuable communication for journalists in repressed countries who have no other publishing means” (BBC News). It is because of blogging that many peoples’ voices and opinions are heard. In the article “The Crisis of Journalism and the Internet”, Robert McChesney explains that “ the internet is to provide the foundation for free speech and a free press” (McChesney 62). The Internet allows for people to openly express their opinions and beliefs and applauds citizen journalism.

However, from reading a great deal of blogs, it is evident that many people just write their opinions on topics. Many people are biased or just don’t know what they are talking about. Many just write about things that interest them, or their specific feelings about a certain event.

JN 229 Entry #8: “News to me: Twitter and the personal networking of news”

Kate Crawford explains in her article News to me: Twitter and the personal networking of news that “the company behind Twitter does not see itself as a news channel, but as something far more dispersed and organic” (Crawford 115). According to Crawford, Twitter reached 44.5 million users in June 2009, which in my opinion is crazy.

As a user of Twitter myself, I am fully aware of what kind of ‘tweets’ are published on a daily basis. As the article states, “’electric technologies’ act as extensions of the human nervous system” (Crawford 115). Upon first reading this statement, I sat back and really thought about what it means. As I have thought about it, I have come to agree with what Twitter has become. I started using Twitter as a social project of sorts for a class last year. However, when the class ended, I kept my account and have continued to use it. I now follow a lot more users and have many following me as well. What I have noticed, is that while some users stick to the generic, “watching a movie” or “hanging out with so and so” tweets, there are some users that use Twitter for news purposes. For instance, many news organizations have Twitter accounts where they will tweet headlines or short story facts that will make followers go read the rest of the story.

From my experience, Twitter acts as both a social media and a news centre. People can catch up with friends and their favourite celebrities, but at the same time, users can read the latest headlines and hear what is going on around the world. One of my favourite users is actually “@LBcancellations”, which is Laurier Brantford University’s Twitter account for cancelled classes. It has become very convenient to follow this user, as sometimes my Laurier email, mylearningspace and/or the campus website will not open on my computer. On these days, it has become really easy to just check twitter to see if a class of mine has been cancelled. Many people will even change their settings so that users such as “@LBcancellations’” tweets are sent straight to their phone.

As a social media site and as a news centre, I believe that Twitter can be very beneficial. While using a social media site, which is something that the new generation of kids has become addicted to, people can read the news as well.

JN 229 Entry # 7: “Social Network Theory” and “Gatekeeping”

In the article “The Many Faced ‘You’ of Social Media” by Sharon Meraz, I was very intrigued by the sections titled “Social Network Theory” and “Gatekeeping”. This section got me thinking about the question, “to what extent do social media networks share similar characteristics to the larger superstructure environment of the World Wide Network” (Meraz 126).

Meraz goes on to explain that “several studies have shown that patterns of link structure within networks on the World Wide Web network exhibit a power law distribution” (Meraz 126). Areas such as growth of websites and website traffic have been found to exhibit power law characteristics (Meraz 126). That is saying that every aspect of a website, from how it grows to who finds the site has to do with a larger power at hand. However, there is little to no work to date that exists to explain power law dynamics within social media news communities (Meraz 126). Meraz states that “if these sites are subject to strong power law effects, it would mean that select users get more success at achieving popular stories than the majority of users within the network” (Meraz 127).

What is gatekeeping?

Meraz goes on to explain gatekeeping and how it affects social media news stating, “in their most extreme form, social media news aggregator sites are creating a new form of gatekeeping that is bottom-up as opposed to top-down” (Meraz 127). Gatekeeping is the term used to describe the news selection process. It has been defined as “the process by which the vast array of potential news messages are winnowed, shaped and prodded into these few that are actually transmitted by the news media” (Meraz 127). There are five factors that act as impact variables on the news selection process: 1) ideological factors, 2) extramedia factors, 3) organizational factors, 4) media professional routines and 5) individuality. Further studies are taking place to examine how hyperlinks and the World Wide Web are affected by gatekeeping.

JN 229 Entry #6: “The Crisis of Journalism and the Internet”

    Upon reading this article, my first question was what exactly is the crisis of journalism and the Internet? Robert McChesney describes it by stating, "The corruption of journalism, the decline of investigative reporting, the degeneration of political reporting and international journalism, the absurd horserace coverage of campaigns, the collapse of local journalism, the increasing prevalence of celebrity and scandal are now roundly acknowledged by all but the owners of large media firms and their hired guns" (McChesney 54).

Now, upon reading this one may ask, as I did, how did this crisis start? McChesney states, "The real concern is what accounts for the present crisis. In much of conventional parlance, the crisis is due primarily to the Internet providing competition to the dominant commercial news media and draining resources from the traditional journalism" (McChesney 55).

Okay, so we're back to one of the ideas that we've been discovering for the duration of this class: the internet as a negative contributor to the journalistic world. I've been thinking about this concept for a very long time and I have yet to come to my own conclusion. So far, I am able to see and understand both sides of the argument.

From a professional point of view, I can see how the internet is having a negative impact on journalism. Like citizen journalism, the internet has made it incredibly easy for just about anybody to post things online. More and more people are tuning into the internet when they want to know what is going on in the world. Similarly, more and more news organizations are producing news online. This is affecting journalism as less and less people read newspapers and magazines. The newspaper industry is decreasing in size due to this new internet craze.

However, from a personal point of view, I love the internet. I admit to tuning in to the internet on a regular basis to hear the news. As a university student living away from home, I don't get a newspaper delivered to my house and I find that I don't have time to sit down and watch the news. My schedule is so busy that it has become easier to just go on the internet to check things out if I want to know what's going on in the world.

    I can see the negative and the positive effects that the internet has had on journalism. Personally I love the internet, but as a student who wants to work in print journalism, I am aware that the internet is slowly taking away those jobs, making my future less definite.

JN 229 Entry #5: “New media and internet activism: from the ‘Battle of Seattle’ to blogging”

    According to Richard Kahn and Douglas Kellner, "since the 1990s, there have been growing discussions of internet activism and how new media have been used effectively by a variety of political movements" (Kahn and Kellner 87). Activists turned to using the internet to broadcast opinions and get word out: "Activists began employing the internet to foster affiliations and stage events against the excesses of neo-liberalism and transitional corporate capitalism" (Kahn and Kellner 87).

    Kahn and Kellner considered that the internet as a global structure is creating a base for "an unparalleled worldwide anti-war/pro-peace and social justice movement during a time of terrorism, war, and intense political struggle" (Kahn and Kellner 88). The internet is a space where people can access any and all information that is recorded/documented on it. This can have a huge positive or negative impact. Until we know more about it, I think it is hard to decipher what sort of impact the internet has on activism.

 

    Blogging: Virtually Democratic

The new internet eco-system has erupted around blogging. First, I would like to question where the word blog came from. What exactly does it mean? According to dictionary.com, a blog is a "website containing the writer's or group of writers' own experiences, observations, opinions etc, and often having images and links to other websites" (dictionary.com). The word blog is a play on web log. Bloggers today have "demonstrated themselves as technoactivists favouring not only democratic self-expression and networking, but also global media critique and journalistic socio-political intervention" (Kahn and Kellner 91). Bloggers state their mind in numerous posts in hopes that others will take the time to read and analyse what they are saying.

    Blogs are successful because they are easy to create and maintain. Even people who are not good with technology find blogging to be simple and fun. Bloggers have the ability to express their opinions to the masses. I personally like blogging. Even if I'm just writing a bunch of nonsense, it's fun to get things out there and know that other people can read it. Whether you're an internet activist or just a blogger for fun, I think having the ability to blog is a good thing.