'Bloggers of the world unite' by Anthony Loewenstein, SMH, January 20, 2007.
After reading this article I definitely agree that new technologies have given voice to regular citizen’s opinions and news reportings. Ten years ago newspapers were all we could rely on for the objective portrayals of the latest news and events with no way to actively communicate our opinions on what was happening around the world concerning regular citizens. But these days with blogs, we see transperant biases and a more interactive means of communicating about the latest news stories. As Loewenstein preposes, blogs don’t need to compete with broadsheet titles as they have far more roles being critics, commentators, researchers and a “shit-stirrers”.
Another very good point Loewenstein makes is that blogs have grown due to public distrust in mainstream media. As a communication student, I have learnt the power thats words hold and how good writers and talkers can say things in a way to subtly disguise their biased points of view. Where as with bloggers they’re a lot more directly biased without any disguise or influence allowing anyone to agree or disagree with what their saying using the commenting feature.
I concur with Richard Stengel’s (managing editor of Time magazine) quote “user-generated content is transforming art, politics and commerce”. However i dont think it means an end to newpapers. He says it is just a matter of time before newspapers become a distant memory of “sermon-on-the-mount pronouncements” and something of the past. People will still buy a newspaper to get a general drift of whats happeneing around the world in current affairs, on the stock market, in politics, in sport and weather. When someone is interested in a particular subject they then can (with the help of new technologies) access blogs and view other peoples opinions and experiences with the subject.
Blogging has signified an age of a more democratic way of reporting information.
Who knows what and how the generations to come will contribute to citizen journalism and whether mainstream media will still be around.
2 comments:
You can't deny that the rise of blogging has really shaken up the mainstream media forces. It's interesting to note though, that their main claim to being of better quality then the blog-o-sphere is that they are held to a higher ethical standard and greater professional attention.
In 2005/2006 a study was made which showed that 14 hours of news time was devoted to the crisis in Darfur while 200+ hours was devoted to Britney Spears.
Quality?
If blogs are going to take over newspapers I don't think its going to happen till all GenX are all gone. I think it'd take way too long for them to catch on to the blogosphere. I still struggle with it
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