An article that I read recently (on a blog, incidentally!), discussed the link between blogging and journalism. The first sentence gave me such a sense of understanding, of clarity about the linked worlds of blogging and journalism: "To ask 'Is blogging journalism', is to mistake form for content". After reading this, and becoming a blogger myself, I realised that it is indeed wrong to pidgeon-hole all blogs as the self-indulgent diary entries of cyber-megalomaniacs. They are one of many media platforms and should instead, be judged according to their content.
A blog (the abbreviation of weblog), is a type of mini-website. It can be defined as "a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links". However, this definition is rather generic. Two contrasting examples of blogs that both might fit under this definition are a journalistic research-based blog and a personal entertainment or specialty-based blog.
It was in the 1990s and early 2000s that weblogs were made accessible to people unable to use HTML codes. It is this accessibility that has made blogs so popular today, and yet also contributes to the detriment of their reputablility. On one hand, they are a fantastic channel for media that wouldn't otherwise get past an editor or censorship protocols. On the other hand, anyone can make a blog; and they can say and omit whatever they choose to in that blog. These authors are free to be anonymous, and aren't forced to abide by ethical rules (apart from minor censorship guidelines). Unfortunately, it is hard to trust people to do the right thing. Indeed, who am I to say what the right thing is? I could be anyone; a random person of any age, gender or race who chose the name Ophelia on a lark. Everything that I say could be completely tainted by bias. It could also potentially be completely false!
This modern blogging phenomenon makes it extremely difficult to judge them according to a generic format, as one often can with a newspaper or academic journal. As I mentioned earlier, each blog must be judged according to its individual content. Yet with the thousands, in fact probably millions, of blogs floating unchecked out there in the world wide web - who has the time to check them all?
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