Akin to all trends it was in vogue with some select crowds for a limited time. It was also hailed as the number one “tech” trend in 2005 by Fortune magazine – it is the ever-expanding “blogosphere”. However, as people rush to create their own weblogs or else get immersed in reading one, time and again they forget what essentially the word “blog” denotes, with six out of 10 people not knowing what it actually is.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary describes a blog, short for weblog, as “a website that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.” But a blog has become more than just a website or an inspired form of online diaries which were all the rage in 1994. Today, there is a plethora of different varieties of blogs to choose from with people around the world blogging about pregnancies, gardening, information technology, gaming, car-racing, cannibalism, cult practices and weddings. Some people take blogging so seriously that they spend oodles of time and money to remain up to date with what they discuss on their blogs and are often responsible for putting up useful information on their chosen subjects and at times for some ground-breaking discovery or even exposing a cover-up.
 

The popularity of creating and readings blogs has increased so drastically that there are actually competitions and awards given out to the best bloggers.

Increasingly used as a medium of communication and even news dissemination, it has brought about a revolution in the world of traditional journalism. And blogging’s uniqueness lies in the fact that it is highly personal – tempering information and filtering it through one viewpoint. Since the beginning of journalism, writers of all kinds have depended upon editors and publishers. It became common practice for writers to cater to a specific clientele or segment of people. But blogging changes all this and adds an element of ambiguity as well as eliminating the audience dependency factor.

Blogging allows the information posted to be available to a global readership rather than a select few. Statistics reveal that the internet is the only medium with the highest reach. But this gives rise to an unforeseen possibility – that of the death of traditional journalism, publishers, newspapers and magazines. One downside to this “blog-mania” is that it nurtures the false impression that anyone with access to the internet can be a writer. As blogs mushroom across the World Wide Web, they are impossible to control, which leads to a number of people writing ‘hate’ blogs and putting up all sorts of inappropriate content before the internet watchdogs catch on. As a result, thus far, only blogging sites propagating ‘hate’ material or those considered a liability by government agencies are targeted and censored, whilst countless others that are less overt with their aggressive or unethical content slip through the cracks.

Any innovation requires time to stand on its own merits and to work through the hitches and flaws it was born with. One look at the internet proves this point. It is still developing and evolving bringing newer better versions of every software and service provided online. Just as streaming of media content for instance, has changed manifold since its inception, blogging has gone far beyond what it was at the beginning and has empowered many to do what was never thought possible in the world of global communication.

Described by many as something between column-writing and talk radio, it has the features of a well-linked community that encourages interactivity and social communication. Blogs have evolved from being just personal diaries to envelop corporations as well as the education sector and have widened their uses to suit a wide range of interests. Information need no longer be administered to eager audiences through select news sources – which essentially means that the gatekeeper’s role has become redundant. Global news spreads like wild fire across the blogosphere in no time at all. Ideas get exposed to multiple viewpoints and perspectives, conventional social barrier restrictions are broken and there is a free flow of information. But this freedom raises the concerns that the quality of “uncontrolled content” needs to be kept under check, but this proves relatively difficult to implement, time and time again.




 

Bloggers are exposing their writings to be read, judged and evaluated by potentially thousands of people, this can prove highly effective as it encourages a healthy dialogue.

We are living in a time of “instant information” where everything we want or need is made available to us in an instant, or at least that is what we have grown to expect. Also with the global village growing smaller and smaller the desire to communicate with a diverse range of people through the internet has grown. Internet users that eventually turn into blog-readers play an integral role here. They are free to choose what they want to read at will and can choose to comment or provide their perspective to the blogger if they are so inclined. Hence bloggers are exposing their writings to be read, judged and evaluated by potentially thousands of people. This can prove highly effective as it encourages a healthy dialogue as well as sharing of ideas and concepts across the globe. The popularity of creating and readings blogs has increased so drastically that there are actually competitions and awards given out to the best bloggers, in specific academic and professional fields by the sites that host them, with some cities going as far as rewarding their local bloggers. Blogging has even turned lucrative with bloggers being picked up by publishers and it seems in no time at all there will be a new kind of celebrity out there – the blogging kind.

Undoubtedly, blogs have built up a digital community of writers and readers alike and has gained a wide audience which facilitates its role in breaking, shaping and even spinning personal perspectives as well as news. For instance popular “milblog” sites helped in increasing people’s interest in the Iraq war – as the rationale behind the war was open to debate. It became the first war since the history of mankind to be documented in this style. Also, it was the first battlefield where every soldier had access to mobiles phones and laptops, with the military no longer depending on letters which could be tampered with or dispatches which could be censored. Soon blogs from soldiers based in Iraq became public and a great deal of hue and cry was raised as a result of their popularity. People from diverse backgrounds from all over the world visited these blogs which housed real war-time stories and harsh realities that were previously suppressed by traditional news sources. But there was a high price to pay for all this freedom.

The Iraq war blogs put the Pentagon on the defensive while the Baghdad office of Al-Jazeera news network was shutdown for posting disturbing video and other content online. A conscientious “milblogger”, Chris Missick, author of the blog “A line in the sand”, posted a question on his blog which put millions of readers in a dilemma, “should I as a lower enlisted soldier have such power to express my opinion and broadcast my point of view to the world?”. While the question of who should be allowed to say what on their blogs remains unanswered, what can be said with certainty is that online blogs in combat zones have provided readers access to unbiased and so-called unadulterated opinions related to the war and its after-math.

The article “The blogs of war” published in Wired magazine in August 2005 discusses how army personnel rose to the occasion and started blogs of their own to give readers an insight into the real battle zone. There was one Neil Prakash, who posted first-person accounts of fighting on the battlefield. Michael Cohen, a major and military doctor used his blog “67 cshdocs” to post daily accounts of wounded people in the hospitals, patients who survived and the final death counts each day. Surprisingly a few days later, Cohen was ordered to discontinue his blog as it violated army regulations. Cohen, was just one of many who were cautioned by higher authorities to stop publishing their blogs during the recent Iraq war.

More recently, natural disaster blogs have been the most visited hotspots where people flocked to get the latest information, be it the Asian tsunami or the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Tsunami blog was set up to help people find the relevant information concerning the disaster, particularly survivors and patients as well as those who lost their lives in the disaster. Kaye D Trammell set up “Kaye’s Hurricane Blog” after she realised the severity of the hurricane and began to provide a great deal of useful information to readers.

“Within hours my readership expanded from my family in Florida, Kansas and Texas to people in Israel, Germany and across the United States. With A-list blogs (whose audiences rival those of small weekly magazines) linking to my site, the word that I was blogging the storm spread quickly”, said Kaye. Though being alone for the first time in the face of a major disaster, she found solace and comfort through the posts she received on her blog. Kaye commented that she felt blogs provide an alternative viewpoint to any situation and that bloggers have a “definite advantage over journalists as they cover a large geographical area and people can learn from first-person accounts”. Kaye does not attribute the fuelling of unwanted rumours to blogs and defends them vociferously, “We understand that we are trusted sources for first-hand information and want nothing more than to provide factual accounts of what is happening. Blogging will not change the world in crisis, but it will make it more human.”

The most recent addition to disaster-related blogs were those related to the Pakistan Earthquake in early October. These blogs alerted people on how to help the rescue and recovery workers with evacuation, setting up medical centres and arranging shelters for the homeless.

The most basic and constructive objective of blogs is to bring the whole world closer and put people all across the hemispheres in touch with what is happening around them. The massive influx of information that readers are exposed to through blogs at any specified time is incalculable, covering almost anything and everything that happens. Blogs serve as our window to the world, i.e. whatever world we choose to look at. Not only are they providing us with information, at times they can be a purely entertaining read with humorous and anecdotal blogs multiplying across the internet.

But as is the case with all things that are free and limitless, there is a downside. Without any checks and balances a perfectly good thing can turn bad. Countless blogs running amuck on the internet present useless or incorrect information, allowing anyone with a bone to pick to rant and rave about anything under the sun. Nonetheless if the alternative is to return to the old-fashioned way of relying on conventional media to present us with information about the world around us, then putting up with a few bad eggs in the blogosphere is not such a problem after all.


 

LIST: The ‘Safe Blog’ Rule-Book: 1)  Know how your company’s views on blogging 2)  Do it on your own time, not whilst at work 3)  Avoid bringing the hammer down on your feet by steering clear from providing either negative or confidential information to colleagues 4)  Tell the boss about your blog before you start it 5)  Write about harmless non-controversial subjects if you must discuss company issues 6)  Murphy’s Law of interpersonal communication suggests that communications usually fail, messages are bound to be misunderstood and people are subject to feel offended by something or the other that you wrote – hence bloggers should tread with caution.

THE SITES
The Blogging Revolution	www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.05/mustread.html?pg=2
The Art of Blogging – Part I	www.elearnspace.org/Articles/blogging_part_1.htm
Avoid getting fired for blogging	www.cnn.com/2005/US/Careers/04/05/blogging
Kaye’s Hurricane Blog	hurricaneupdate.blogspot.com
Pakistan Earthquake Blog	www.pakquake.com quakehelp.blogspot.com
Ready for your close-up? Here comes the vlogs	msnbc.msn.com/id/7226225