With the prevelance of blogs moving increasingly into the mainstream and away from insomniacs living in their parents' basement, the impact of blogs (blogpact?) on every day life is being reported on more frequently. Articles on the dangers of writing a blog about work, the lasting efffect of one's "digital footprints" left online, and issues of blogger accountability seem to appear on MSN.com and Slate magazine every day. While the word "blog" refers mostly to individual online logs, the mentality and ideology appears from online encyclopedias (onlinecopedias?), Wikipedia the most popular, to Shoutwire, a "community based internet news website." The commonality between Wikipedia and ShoutWire is the weight given to viewer participation that determines published content. On Wikipedia, viewers determine what changes occur within the articles. Certainly there are guidelines and reviews to prevent libel or vandalism, but the principle, where material is updated from the grassroots rather than by an exclusive, top-down authority remains the same. On Shoutwire, the articles that have been commented on the most are listed first, at least in the case of websites that carry Shoutwire material, such as Torrentspy.com.
What individual blogs, onlinecopedias and community news sites have in common is the value they place on community participation. Comments from readers are always encouraged and often given in raw, unedited form. Comments are posted right away uncensored, often leading to heated, sudden debate. Wikipedia, which does utilize far more review and oversight over submissions, has nonetheless been victim of many vandalism attempts, some pranks (Stephen Colbert's African Elephants) some worse (one individual's biography listed him as a suspect in the Kennedy assassination, in his case clearly untrue).
The contrast between contemporary community news and traditional print or television news is the filtration utilized by the information source. Newspaper editors print only the letters they see fit, television news manipulates interviews for brevity and content. This level of top-down control certainly lends itself to a degree of elitism, but also a level of hindsight. Online news sites are filled with comments which, to be mild, give little effort to tact or moderation. In the end, more voices are heard but as a result, more are drowned out. The speed at which news stories are reported, commented, debated, and in some cases retracted has increased dramatically with the synergistic nature of internet information sharing. Convenience of access and volume of information are the benefit, but peer review, reflection and informed debate are hindered simply because the breath of information curtails the debth of analysis. With the emphasis on attaining more information on the latest news story, the analysis stage that used to be part of a viewer's digestive cycle is at risk of being lost.
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blogs have been mainstram for a few years now.. they're done moving... blogosphere actually topped the internet list of 'top 25 most hated words on the internet'.. followed by netiquette.
anyways.. im no longer updating my blog, as im working on the 'next cool thing' on the internets, it's facebook, but for dogs, welcome: dogbook.
Very true, but lots of internet-savvy folk forget how terribly unsavvy the Baby Boomer generation is. Boomers, who make up the highest percentage of the population, also painfully make up most of the population of my office. Some of them don't even know what Google is. Blogging is repulsively widespread in the internet world, but there's still a massive block of the population, let's call them Old People, who are still frustratingly influention upon cultural trends. Their ignorance inspired this post, as I now spend more time with people who can't change their homepage than with Leet-speakers. It's because of our differing points of view that this question is interesting: Just how well does the internet represent North American cultural values. I'd argue a lot, but perhaps not as much as we think. Somebody out there still buys magazines, CD's, and printed news.
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