A Blogger’s Blog

Danah Boyd brings to light some unique viewpoints on the world of blogging in her paper, “A Blogger’s Blog: Exploring the Definition of a Medium”.  She discusses the intent and meaning behind the creation and use of a blog, and how these each are usually misunderstood by the general public.  The concept of blogging seems to have many definitions, and it seems that the blogger is the one who creates their own meaning for this form of expression.

I personally have written for a few public blog sites which requires me to realize who my audience is and what interests them, as well as my more private blog which contains more of my own viewpoints and thoughts.  It is fun to have others reply to your work, but almost more fun to not be afraid of the responses your words may get by the public.  I would say that many aspects of the art of blogging are learned through experience.  For example, my first public blog post was received with some contempt due to a slightly obscene reference that I made.   I learned from my mistake however and gave more careful thought to who my audience was in order to make my posts more relatable and audience appropriate.

A final aspect that Boyd discusses which caught my eye was the the complicated relationship between Journalists and Bloggers.  While trying to decide what direction to take my writing career, I have often wondered if it is at all possible to consider myself both.

The relationship between bloggers and journalists is complicated. On one hand,
journalists feel intimidated by bloggers’ ability to rapidly cover new material; on the
other, journalists are dismissive of bloggers’ lack of code with respect to neutrality and
checking of sources. While most bloggers do not identify as journalists, some do.
Journalist-identified bloggers view their practice as journalism and their blog as their
journalist publication. They are actively involved in setting ethical codes and standards,
although many do not believe that those set forth by mainstream media organizations are
quintessential to the practice. Given their identification and practice, they believe that
they should be given journalistic protections under the law. In the case of Apple vs. Does
(EFF 2005), bloggers feel as though they should have the journalistic right to protect their
sources. At stake in this case is whether bloggers can be journalists as well as whether
journalists can blog as their means of production.

I believe that both genres of writing are still being defined by those within the industry and therefore there is no right answer to my questions.  I am sure that whatever my generation does with these new technological developments will define the industry of writing in a revolutionary way.