In terms of new media, weblog technology is tremendously durable. It’s developed since the mid nineties, remains, and continues to develop. In the context of these systems, I’d like to thank Spazeboy and Connecticut Bob for their screening of Blog Wars at the college. I would have liked to have seen more new media students (but who isn’t a new media student these days?) at the gathering, but the crowd had critical mass and Spazeboy and CT Bob masterfully put the evening together. The documentary provided a nice step into hypertext fiction in my fiction course, too, given non-linearity and connective systems. After the event we had lots of questions. Beau browses through one mine in this paragraph:
Of course, I always think of better answers to questions after the fact, and when Professor Ersinghaus asked about the difference in blog traffic I don’t feel like I had a satisfactory answer. CT Bob and I (not to mention all of the other local blogs) had amazing levels of traffic last year during the campaign, especially while the CT-Senate race was the only major political story in the country. One reason we had so much traffic is that the more work that we put into our sites, the more traffic we pulled in. That explains how we got things going, and how we keep things going, but it doesn’t explain the wicked high traffic from last year. I don’t think the eyeballs disappeared, I think they just moved on to the next big thing, whatever it happened to be.
My question was this: was there a cause and effect relationship between national and local “traditional” media coverage and increase in traffic given that weblogs themselves have become a “subject” of the news? It’s not that great of a question. But here’s the premise. Major contemporary/traditional media still caricatures the weblog. CNN has a segment called blog watch where a speaker brings the watcher up to speed on issues covered on a “kind of” weblog. This method marginalizes and excludes weblogs hence marginalizing and excluding the people behind them (Exclude? you ask. Sure, there are more than one kind of weblog). I find the segment inane because it turns the world of the weblog into something to “watch.” What Blog Wars makes clear to some extent is the participatory nature of the weblog. A “traditional” aspect of the weblog is that many people may read them but don’t “participate” in them or manage their own. Blog Wars featured Daily Kos, a hybrid format weblog, emphasizing community participation through polls, comments, and yes, its adverts. It could be argued that Kos, like Second Life, derives its strength through its participants, not by Markos Zúniga and its contributing editors.
Traditional media tends to restrict new media to “a thing” on the Internet. We here at this weblog believe that things on the Internet are complicated systems designed by people not just things to “watch.”
6 Comments
Didn’t know it was scheduled–looks interesting and I’ll watch the video.
Susan, I didn’t promote it as heavily as I should have.
Steve hits on something above that is really key to blogging and the internet in general: It’s not a broadcast medium.
If my ultimate goal was for millions (or hundreds of thousands) of people to regularly read or hear my opinions and ideas, starting a weblog would be an inefficient way to accomplish it. It would be better for me to go the route of Rush Limbaugh and get into radio or the route of Maureen Dowd and become a syndicated columnist.
The problem with Limbaugh and Dowd is that they can essentially say or write whatever they want with minimal depth and minimal listener/reader participation. They can be as wrong as the sky is blue and never worry about the notes that someone scrawls in the margins being read by everyone else who is listening or reading.
Andrew Sullivan says in the film that weblogs have tremendous depth because of hyperlinks. Bloggers can get straight to the commentary, and provide a link or an excerpt of the news. Readers who are up to speed needn’t click through but readers who want to learn more are enabled to do so.
So blogging is about community, and you get as much as you give. It’s not a one-way street as with TV and radio.
One other thing I noticed last night was that when I asked the crowd if any of them had a weblog, only two hands went up. So in a room of people ranging in age from 19 to the upper 50s, who do you think raised their hands?
The two oldest people in the room.
I was the youngest blogger there by at least 10 years, and I’m 25.
Markos of DailyKos has an interesting meta post up, which I think adds a bit to our discussion of blogs:
Hah–rather funny to prove the point of weblogs not being a broadcasting medium by not broadcast advertising your presentation.
Haven’t had a chance yet to view the video or check out the hyperlinks so I may be offkey here, but one interesting thing I’ve noticed is that bloggers usually throw in the towel not for lack of things to say, but rather lack of reaction, usually via comments. I know personally that I don’t check stats–it’s usually Googlers looking for literarature homework help–often, but get excited when I notice a comment made. After 3800 posts in three years, I’m less likely to suddenly shut down but have the “nobody cares anyway” lack of comments is when I seriously reconsider my time as being wasted.
As far as you’re comment on weblogs and age of thems that do, I was surprised to note that only what, two? students of Tunxis NM have blogs? In considering the age aspect, I suspect that younger folk don’t have the patience to wait for a response–they’re possibly much more into IM or Text Messaging for the immediate gratification. Perhaps too, they prefer a more one-on-one communication with others rather than the often lonely feeling of a weblog, despite its community gathering properties.
Students? Hah!
One hand belonged to Professor Ersinghaus and the other to John McNamara, the New Britain DTC chairman.
Obscure-ish weblogs with little comment interaction are actually great scratchpads (i.e. my new media weblog), so it’s a shame that every student doesn’t have a blog.
Engaging a subject deeply can be scary and takes work, as you all know, and being frightened of deep engagement can be a characteristic of anyone. Many of my students are unaware of weblogs or don’t know that they can be used to learn, study, critique, or mesmerize.
Adding a hyperlink to a post in a weblog is an “intentional” act. “Scratchpading” is also intentional. I wish all my students would engage; I wish all my students would work on doing what they wish with their work.
I salute you two for your heavy work in the weblog context.