So what exactly makes up a blog?
Jill Rettberg's book "Blogging" settles on defining a blog as a medium. It holds varied forms of media; much like how YouTube has videos, comments, suggestions, the blog has posts, comments, and different archives and genres to choose from. However, is medium the right word for it? Just because the concept of the blog is able to hold different forms of media (pictures, text, videos, etc.), does it necessarily mean that the blog is in itself an overarching being- an end-all be-all like the television or the Pope? Or is it just another cog in the intricate steampunk robot of the modern internet age, making it simply a genre with various sub-genres under its command?
Another problem facing the blog-o-sphere is the following question: what exactly is personal when it comes to blogs? Individual blogging sites may have terms and conditions, but such conditions only relate to what one can and cannot post. Nothing is said about the privacy of the individuals post. In fact, Miller & Shepherd's Blogging as a Social Action... piece gives a number of examples on how personal material has reached the eyes of audiences that were never meant to be aware. A student's personal diary (in blog form) was investigated by the FBI; a woman's vented frustrations of her upbringing and career experience was seen by the people she wrote about. Nothing seems to be safe, so why do people still post intimate details about their lives?
Lastly, the question of the night comes down to what is the future of the blog? Already we have seen an exponential growth in the number of blogs since inception of the word in 1997, so much so that sites such as Technorati have had to scale down their indexing of blogs from all in existence to the top 100. Rettberg explains how blogging has now come hand in hand with journalism in a pseudo-symbiotic relationship. Miller & Shepherd reveal that through studying the kairos associated with the blog, the time is now. Will blogs continue to expand due to the individual's desire to be heard? I think so.
-Melissa DeHart
Sources:
Miller, Carolyn R., and Dawn Shephard. "Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture
of Weblogs: Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog." Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs: Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog. University of Minnesota, 25 Sept. 2004. Web. 14 Sept. 2014.
Rettberg, Jill Walker. Blogging. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity, 2014. Print.
In response to your first concern about blogs being considered their own medium, I agree that just because they are able to hold various forms of media within themselves does not make them stand as a medium on their own. Yes, compared to televisions, blogs do consist of a surplus of content on numerous subjects; however, as you and Rettburg both question, “is it just another cog in the intricate steampunk robot of the modern internet age, making it simply a genre with various sub-genres under its command?” Well, I agree; when viewing the internet as a medium for blogs to exist, it is completely safe to say that blogs exist as their own genre. If a blog is considered its own genre, then a sub-genre of the blog may be personal blogs, or science blogs.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your next concern: “what exactly is personal when it comes to blogs?” and “why do people still post intimate details about their lives,” I believe that we live in an age where nothing may be deemed as personal; at least nothing that we type into the public domain on our numerous devices. So, what exactly is personal when it comes to blogs? Nothing, really. I suppose content may be published and still be considered personal; however, it is most definitely not private after being released to the public. As soon as anything personal leaves your thoughts through your fingertips and onto the screen for the world to see, privacy is instantly lost. That being said, why do people still post intimate details about their lives? Well, although people crave a bit of privacy in their lives, in order to be heard, or get noticed, intimate details get posted publically with intentions of trying to create a voice for themselves. Maybe, everyone who decides to post intimate details on their blogs seek to achieve the “Warholian” fifteen minutes of fame.
The future of the blog is bright in this day and age. With numerous everyday people posting personal and intellectual information on the internet on a daily basis, blogs are growing at an exponential rate. Not only are the people behind the screens making blogs a huge trend, but also the rapidly growing advancement of technology. With the amount of devices readily available to us, it is easy to post anything on the internet from anywhere. The time for blogging is now.