To be completely honest, I’d forgotten the need for blogs prior to reading Mark Brigg’s “How to Blog.” As Naive as it may sound, I thought that blogs were a thing of the early 2000’s; something that, as with flip phones and and boomboxes, have lost their significance in our modern technological sphere. However, Brigg’s article reminded me just how important it is for journalists to occasionally take a break from the rigid mechanics of traditional print reporting.
Blogs provide a space for writers to relay the same information, but in digital form, giving way to experimentation with style and design which can oftentimes be a relief for both the blogger and the audience. Through a blog, journalists can be more conversational in their pieces, which paves the way for more intimate and loyal followings. What particularly interested me about blogs was the point Briggs brought up about the differing dynamic between the journalist and the reader.
Whereas in traditional print fields, criticism comes across as argumentative and offensive, on online forums, readers seem to carry better intentions, wanting only to help the blogger not correct them.
– Briggs
As someone who is very protective about my writing, this aspect of blogging appealed to me the most. Furthermore, blogs are much easier to keep track of than daily print stories, as their short and sweet composition practically begs for consistency (music to a busy college student’s ears). All this to say, perhaps blogs aren’t as outdated as I conjured them to be in my mind.
I’m not typically so easily swayed, but I do believe that the blog can be an integral tool in my digital media journey. This read, like many other experiences in my digital media literacy course so far, has been enlightening to say in the least. I find it interesting how a generation of teens like myself, born and raised deep within the era of technology, can know both so much and so little about the electronic devices that control so many aspects of our everyday life.
I never fail to be surprised about how much I continue to learn in this course, no matter how much I already thought I knew about the equally exciting and terrifying world of the internet. I almost wish that more people my age could be exposed to the same knowledge, as I’m almost confident this would lead to the decrease of ignorance I see daily on my Twitter timeline.
Alas, this is only a dream.
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nyah terrilyn 