“Blogs should be the seasoning—or maybe the garnish—in a reader’s well-balanced media diet.” ― Christopher Allbritton (2003)
Blogging: self-indulgent triviality or a valid form of journalism?
The blogosphere is cluttered with useless and untruthful information. Yet bloggers also have the potential to play a vital role in enhancing journalistic practices, and changing the media landscape to a more democratic public sphere. Exploring the strengths and weaknesses of blogging and journalism and implications of modern cultural convergence will cement the importance of bloggers to a democratic society. In a climate where truth can be covered by untruths, PR spin or government cover-ups, the value and potential of a blog as an accessible, alternate news source becomes evident. Whether or not blogging encompasses a “quest for truth”, its role as an ethical touchstone for other media outlets is shaping our mainstream media.
The freedom of the public sphere and truth in journalism are valued as a guiding hand for contemporary democracy. The concept of pure, unadulterated, impartial ‘truth’ will always been contentious, both in life and journalism. Agenda setting and bias in the media is unavoidable― corporate interest, personal interest and individual perspective will constantly frame and cloud the truth. Most that we hear and see will be perspective and opinion-based no matter which avenue we choose to hear from. Often this perspective will be via a traditional news journalist, and our understanding of news ‘truths’ will be gleaned from newspaper or television reportage. These conventional journalists usually undertake professional training, their writing and information is collected, vetted and is only offered to the public as “truth” after having survived “rigorous scrutiny by both reporter and editor” (Bruns, A. 2006. p23). However in recent times, the legitimacy of this media “truth” has been more and more fiercely questioned, and people are turning to alternative sources.
The proliferation of weblogs on the internet has altered the traditional relationship between media producers and consumers, and introduced new media consumption habits. Over 32 million Americans were blog readers at the end of 2004 (Bruns, A. 2006. p2), and the increasing trend suggested the nature and framework of traditional journalism would be have to be revolutionized in order keep up with the technological developments of weblogging.
A blog can be many things- Lovink (2006) describes it as a “frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links, a mixture of what is happening in a person’s life and what is happening on the Web and in the world out there.” Anything can be published on a blog, from light, irrelevant fluff to hard news and political opinions. The degree of irrelevance is high- as Lovink points out; blogs open a kind of democratic space that has succumbed to a normalization that sustains the banality of day to day web diaries or clubs. Blogging at its worst is meaningless, misspelt commentary on hackneyed and predictable everyday life— but at its best they provide a fresh, attractive alternative to mainstream media, and endear their audience with their “quirky, scrappy tone, their in your face opinions and the personal scale of the publication” (Allbriton, C. 2003. p83)
To describe blogging as a ‘quest for truth’ overlooks the masses of blogs that serve no poignant purpose at all, far from aiming to partake in any kind of noble quest for truth. And even those sites that may purport to be presenting their own version of truth― genres such as political blogs, travel blogs, corporate blogs or community blogs― all can have their own agenda, lock and stock, with little or no restriction on publishing any “illegitimate or even dangerously skewed information.” (Bruns, 2006. p3). There is no obligation to report both sides to a story, which, as Eric Alterman puts it, “means a vast increase in the net amount of crap swirling around out there, unedited, unchecked and largely untrue.” (2003. P85). It appears that the nature of the Weblog beast is often an inherently biased and unpredictable one, but consumers are savvy enough to this fact that they can be constantly renegotiating and checking their relationship with the medium and the text. Both blogger and journalist must be consistently faithful to the facts of a news story in order to gain credibility in their ‘truth.’ As Rosen describes— “the number one asset of the news organization: stored trust, reputational capital.” (Rosen, J. 2005) Thus, just like Hello magazine may not have the same reporting credibility for news stories as comparable to The Age, so too will some blogs have more weight with a readership than others. ‘Truth with a question mark’ sums up the uncertain, un-sourced and unreliable reality of most blogs.
But some bloggers report truth or challenge truths in a way that truly taps into the democratic potential of the blogging medium. American Colby Buzzell wrote a blog describing his experience of serving as a soldier in Iraq, and he captured a readership intrigued by the “vividness of [a] first person account” (Rosen, J. 2005). An alternative perspective to the heavily policed information coming out of Iraq via the military and government avenues, his was a voice that gave important insight to a divisive situation, which without the medium, would have been previously unheard. Similarly, the weblog Streamtime is set up as a forum for Iraqi bloggers to publish their thoughts and experiences, focusing on “getting through to people’s information that we don’t know or hear about that easily.” (Lovink, G. 2006. p126). If the mainstream media and traditional journalists are restricted or erroneous in their reporting, the blogosphere is potentially waiting in the wings to contest, negotiate and remedy the situation.
In this respect, bloggers can have the freedom and capacity to reveal valuable truths, just like journalists, that sway election results, end careers, reveal government blunders and expose sensitive or overlooked situations. Bloggers can keep journalists’ accountable for their words and, importantly, can act and report without some of the restraints placed on traditional journalists. Journalists in the mainstream media can often be restricted and “driven by ideological agendas rather than professional standards, burying stories that run counter to their [company’s] economic interests, [and] reducing a complex world to one big story at a time” (Jenkins, 2006. p216). Bloggers are unrestricted by time-specific news slots or paper deadlines, equipment or crew, and as such can sometimes trump journalists by breaking news with a “real-time virtual feedback loop” (Gallo, J. 2007). Bloggers have been first to report at “unfolding world events” such as the 2004 tsunami, and the Virginia Tech massacres (Bruns, 2006. p7). At the same time a weblog can report on the latest action at a small-town cat show that might be overlooked by the mainstream media. In theory, blogging gives every John Citizen a voice. In practice, a blog writer is usually white, male and conservative, unaffected by the digital divide (Bruno, N. 2007). However, entry into the world of blogging doesn’t require journalistic qualifications, an education, overly technical knowledge or publishing rights. There is a certain level of accessibility in blogging that is not available in other areas of the mainstream media. And whilst this makes for a cacophony of voices and blogs, it also creates a new relationship and accountability within the mediasphere.
Blogging- accessible, participatory and challenging the norms of media production
The participatory nature of blogging empowers ordinary citizens to contribute and respond to issues directly online. Whilst a ‘Letter to the Editor’ might be sent off to a newspaper and never acknowledged, let alone published, web architecture enables consumers to ‘comment’ the blog and produce their own critique to material. Every claim or comment is open to feedback and criticism, and can consequently be examined and vetted by blog-readers, leading to an increased transparency and openness of dialogue (Gallo, J. 2007). This kind of peer-review process means that blogs can provide insightful truths, accurate truths, and― if pieces fall into place― truths with an exultant exclamation mark rather than a question mark (truth! vs. truth?). When suspect documents critical of George Bush’s military service were aired in the American media in 2004, it was bloggers who questioned their authenticity and kicked up a fuss until the media had to take notice of the “incessant chanting online”. (Dotson, C. 2006) Blogging at its best can gain nuggets of truth “by pooling their information and tapping grassroots expertise, by debating evidence and scrutinizing all available information, and, perhaps most powerfully, by challenging one another’s assumptions” (Jenkins, H. 2006. p216)
Traditional journalism- what is on offer?
Blogging ‘at its best’, however, is a rare occurrence. In reality, bloggers rarely ‘uncover’ fresh facts to a news story (Lovink, G. 2007). In defense of traditional journalists and their oft-criticized practice, it is undeniably blogging that most often deals with untruths and heavily biased opinion. Where the blogosphere has an immense freedom to provide masses of information, journalists are trusted, to a degree, to identify and edit the important parts of this information and present it to us in an objective manner. Traditional journalistic practices involve a set of professional standards and ethical requirements— democratic journalism is essential in serving the public and “providing citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing” (Singer, J. 2006 p23). The traditional architectural structure of news writing— a cohesive story, the use of layout etc— is designed to add meaning and help understanding (Rosen, J. 2005). In effect, as a democratic society we have, to some extent, dictated how our media system should operate, under codes of ethics and professionalism. What Lovink suggests, in Blogging, the nihilist impulse (2007), which we will explore further, is that the prevalence of blogs is result of our disillusionment in media ‘truths’.
Blogging: the nihilist impulse
The fact that Weblogs have been hailed as a way of ‘democratizing’ journalism is largely indicative of the notion that the current media system is viewed as not democratic enough. (Gallo, J. 2007) But there should be no romantic notions of bloggers revolutionizing journalism, or, as Jenkins imagines “rewriting the ending.” (Jenkins, H. 2004. p37) As Geert Lovink (2007) describes, the freedom that bloggers are permitted lacks any kind of revolutionary direction. Instead “a collapsed belief system” (Lovink, 2007) means bloggers are as a group cynical reflectors to the mainstream media— not mobilized enough to pioneer change— but at the same time enlightened enough to recognize the futility of the small role they play in the blogosphere. This nihilistic element rejects the media interpretations of truth, and yet has consciously not offered an alternative ideology. According to Lovink (2007), this stale relationship means that the blogosphere isn’t going to provoke any kind of huge shake-up or overthrowing of current mainstream media practices. The public sphere is shifting slowly, and bloggers can regard the independent journalist’s version of truth with a level of skepticism, and then follow through by contributing to the online dialogue. Old style media and journalists work for “months, if not years, to uncover a story— bloggers look more like an army of ants contributing to the great hive called “public opinion” (Lovink, G. 2007).
The Lovink view is a fairly pessimistic assessment of the consumer citizen being passive, stagnant and mainly incapable of having thoughts of our own when faced with a free forum- “blogs are a gift to humankind that no one needs.” (Lovink, G. 2007) I would argue that whilst any blog-coordinated social change might be slow moving, there are positive exceptions to this passivity that are indeed ready and prepared to revolutionize the blogosphere as a channel of change. One need only be reminded of the blogs such as Streamtime to recognise that there are bloggers committed to starting changes. Even small shifts in consciousness and small changes in the blogger mentality will produce small shifts in producer/consumer relations. The interaction between blogs and mainstream journalism is where “old and new media collide, […] where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways.” (Jenkins, H. 2006. p3) ― the changes will begin with convergence.
Cultural convergence: the push-and-pull relationship between journalism and blogs
The relationship between the blogosphere and the traditional media sphere provides an interesting insight to the cultural implications of media convergence. The increasing prevalence of blogs has effects that echo in the mainstream media— journalists now turn to the blogosphere as a new gauge of public opinion on controversial issues (Bruns, A. 2006. p1). Instead of ‘gatekeeping’, the mainstream media is ‘gatewatching’ keeping an ear to the ground for content to co-opt (Bruns, A. 2006). The very nature of the relationship between producer and consumer is being renegotiated— traditional media producers no longer have exclusive control over the means of broadcasting a message. Each medium has been forced to learn and adopt the best of the other, as they feed off each other symbiotically. Old media, in particular, has had to adapt and change by updating its format; most news corporations now have blog sections to their websites, and their own bloggers-in-residence. Prominent blog-writers can be employed by mainstream media, just as journalists can have their own offshoot blog. Where traditional media once focused on factual news reporting, journalists are now often expected to be able to comment and elaborate on information. Furthermore, blogs are monitored by reporters to search for new ideas and perspectives to co-opt and circulate into their content.
Blog users are empowered to create, produce and question media messages, as well as choose what content they consume. Whilst they might choose to step back and watch the process with a cynical eye, bloggers do have the potential to start change. The two spheres of old and new media keep each other accountable— convergence could work in favour to re-engage citizens if activism takes further root in the interactive space.
By questioning and badgering, blogs have begun to enhance traditional journalistic practices, “providing the seeds for an incremental, rather than radical, change in how the media reports and disseminates news.” (Gallo, J. 2004) And whilst the blogosphere seems far from producing a grand revolutionary truth or movement, nor is it completely devoid of passion and drive as Lovink suggests. There are bloggers and journalists alike who will continue their “quest for truth” in the constantly shifting media environment and at the very least can keep pushing each other forward.
Blogging: self-indulgent triviality or a valid form of journalism?
The blogosphere is cluttered with useless and untruthful information. Yet bloggers also have the potential to play a vital role in enhancing journalistic practices, and changing the media landscape to a more democratic public sphere. Exploring the strengths and weaknesses of blogging and journalism and implications of modern cultural convergence will cement the importance of bloggers to a democratic society. In a climate where truth can be covered by untruths, PR spin or government cover-ups, the value and potential of a blog as an accessible, alternate news source becomes evident. Whether or not blogging encompasses a “quest for truth”, its role as an ethical touchstone for other media outlets is shaping our mainstream media.
The freedom of the public sphere and truth in journalism are valued as a guiding hand for contemporary democracy. The concept of pure, unadulterated, impartial ‘truth’ will always been contentious, both in life and journalism. Agenda setting and bias in the media is unavoidable― corporate interest, personal interest and individual perspective will constantly frame and cloud the truth. Most that we hear and see will be perspective and opinion-based no matter which avenue we choose to hear from. Often this perspective will be via a traditional news journalist, and our understanding of news ‘truths’ will be gleaned from newspaper or television reportage. These conventional journalists usually undertake professional training, their writing and information is collected, vetted and is only offered to the public as “truth” after having survived “rigorous scrutiny by both reporter and editor” (Bruns, A. 2006. p23). However in recent times, the legitimacy of this media “truth” has been more and more fiercely questioned, and people are turning to alternative sources.
The proliferation of weblogs on the internet has altered the traditional relationship between media producers and consumers, and introduced new media consumption habits. Over 32 million Americans were blog readers at the end of 2004 (Bruns, A. 2006. p2), and the increasing trend suggested the nature and framework of traditional journalism would be have to be revolutionized in order keep up with the technological developments of weblogging.
A blog can be many things- Lovink (2006) describes it as a “frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links, a mixture of what is happening in a person’s life and what is happening on the Web and in the world out there.” Anything can be published on a blog, from light, irrelevant fluff to hard news and political opinions. The degree of irrelevance is high- as Lovink points out; blogs open a kind of democratic space that has succumbed to a normalization that sustains the banality of day to day web diaries or clubs. Blogging at its worst is meaningless, misspelt commentary on hackneyed and predictable everyday life— but at its best they provide a fresh, attractive alternative to mainstream media, and endear their audience with their “quirky, scrappy tone, their in your face opinions and the personal scale of the publication” (Allbriton, C. 2003. p83)
To describe blogging as a ‘quest for truth’ overlooks the masses of blogs that serve no poignant purpose at all, far from aiming to partake in any kind of noble quest for truth. And even those sites that may purport to be presenting their own version of truth― genres such as political blogs, travel blogs, corporate blogs or community blogs― all can have their own agenda, lock and stock, with little or no restriction on publishing any “illegitimate or even dangerously skewed information.” (Bruns, 2006. p3). There is no obligation to report both sides to a story, which, as Eric Alterman puts it, “means a vast increase in the net amount of crap swirling around out there, unedited, unchecked and largely untrue.” (2003. P85). It appears that the nature of the Weblog beast is often an inherently biased and unpredictable one, but consumers are savvy enough to this fact that they can be constantly renegotiating and checking their relationship with the medium and the text. Both blogger and journalist must be consistently faithful to the facts of a news story in order to gain credibility in their ‘truth.’ As Rosen describes— “the number one asset of the news organization: stored trust, reputational capital.” (Rosen, J. 2005) Thus, just like Hello magazine may not have the same reporting credibility for news stories as comparable to The Age, so too will some blogs have more weight with a readership than others. ‘Truth with a question mark’ sums up the uncertain, un-sourced and unreliable reality of most blogs.
But some bloggers report truth or challenge truths in a way that truly taps into the democratic potential of the blogging medium. American Colby Buzzell wrote a blog describing his experience of serving as a soldier in Iraq, and he captured a readership intrigued by the “vividness of [a] first person account” (Rosen, J. 2005). An alternative perspective to the heavily policed information coming out of Iraq via the military and government avenues, his was a voice that gave important insight to a divisive situation, which without the medium, would have been previously unheard. Similarly, the weblog Streamtime is set up as a forum for Iraqi bloggers to publish their thoughts and experiences, focusing on “getting through to people’s information that we don’t know or hear about that easily.” (Lovink, G. 2006. p126). If the mainstream media and traditional journalists are restricted or erroneous in their reporting, the blogosphere is potentially waiting in the wings to contest, negotiate and remedy the situation.
In this respect, bloggers can have the freedom and capacity to reveal valuable truths, just like journalists, that sway election results, end careers, reveal government blunders and expose sensitive or overlooked situations. Bloggers can keep journalists’ accountable for their words and, importantly, can act and report without some of the restraints placed on traditional journalists. Journalists in the mainstream media can often be restricted and “driven by ideological agendas rather than professional standards, burying stories that run counter to their [company’s] economic interests, [and] reducing a complex world to one big story at a time” (Jenkins, 2006. p216). Bloggers are unrestricted by time-specific news slots or paper deadlines, equipment or crew, and as such can sometimes trump journalists by breaking news with a “real-time virtual feedback loop” (Gallo, J. 2007). Bloggers have been first to report at “unfolding world events” such as the 2004 tsunami, and the Virginia Tech massacres (Bruns, 2006. p7). At the same time a weblog can report on the latest action at a small-town cat show that might be overlooked by the mainstream media. In theory, blogging gives every John Citizen a voice. In practice, a blog writer is usually white, male and conservative, unaffected by the digital divide (Bruno, N. 2007). However, entry into the world of blogging doesn’t require journalistic qualifications, an education, overly technical knowledge or publishing rights. There is a certain level of accessibility in blogging that is not available in other areas of the mainstream media. And whilst this makes for a cacophony of voices and blogs, it also creates a new relationship and accountability within the mediasphere.
Blogging- accessible, participatory and challenging the norms of media production
The participatory nature of blogging empowers ordinary citizens to contribute and respond to issues directly online. Whilst a ‘Letter to the Editor’ might be sent off to a newspaper and never acknowledged, let alone published, web architecture enables consumers to ‘comment’ the blog and produce their own critique to material. Every claim or comment is open to feedback and criticism, and can consequently be examined and vetted by blog-readers, leading to an increased transparency and openness of dialogue (Gallo, J. 2007). This kind of peer-review process means that blogs can provide insightful truths, accurate truths, and― if pieces fall into place― truths with an exultant exclamation mark rather than a question mark (truth! vs. truth?). When suspect documents critical of George Bush’s military service were aired in the American media in 2004, it was bloggers who questioned their authenticity and kicked up a fuss until the media had to take notice of the “incessant chanting online”. (Dotson, C. 2006) Blogging at its best can gain nuggets of truth “by pooling their information and tapping grassroots expertise, by debating evidence and scrutinizing all available information, and, perhaps most powerfully, by challenging one another’s assumptions” (Jenkins, H. 2006. p216)
Traditional journalism- what is on offer?
Blogging ‘at its best’, however, is a rare occurrence. In reality, bloggers rarely ‘uncover’ fresh facts to a news story (Lovink, G. 2007). In defense of traditional journalists and their oft-criticized practice, it is undeniably blogging that most often deals with untruths and heavily biased opinion. Where the blogosphere has an immense freedom to provide masses of information, journalists are trusted, to a degree, to identify and edit the important parts of this information and present it to us in an objective manner. Traditional journalistic practices involve a set of professional standards and ethical requirements— democratic journalism is essential in serving the public and “providing citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing” (Singer, J. 2006 p23). The traditional architectural structure of news writing— a cohesive story, the use of layout etc— is designed to add meaning and help understanding (Rosen, J. 2005). In effect, as a democratic society we have, to some extent, dictated how our media system should operate, under codes of ethics and professionalism. What Lovink suggests, in Blogging, the nihilist impulse (2007), which we will explore further, is that the prevalence of blogs is result of our disillusionment in media ‘truths’.
Blogging: the nihilist impulse
The fact that Weblogs have been hailed as a way of ‘democratizing’ journalism is largely indicative of the notion that the current media system is viewed as not democratic enough. (Gallo, J. 2007) But there should be no romantic notions of bloggers revolutionizing journalism, or, as Jenkins imagines “rewriting the ending.” (Jenkins, H. 2004. p37) As Geert Lovink (2007) describes, the freedom that bloggers are permitted lacks any kind of revolutionary direction. Instead “a collapsed belief system” (Lovink, 2007) means bloggers are as a group cynical reflectors to the mainstream media— not mobilized enough to pioneer change— but at the same time enlightened enough to recognize the futility of the small role they play in the blogosphere. This nihilistic element rejects the media interpretations of truth, and yet has consciously not offered an alternative ideology. According to Lovink (2007), this stale relationship means that the blogosphere isn’t going to provoke any kind of huge shake-up or overthrowing of current mainstream media practices. The public sphere is shifting slowly, and bloggers can regard the independent journalist’s version of truth with a level of skepticism, and then follow through by contributing to the online dialogue. Old style media and journalists work for “months, if not years, to uncover a story— bloggers look more like an army of ants contributing to the great hive called “public opinion” (Lovink, G. 2007).
The Lovink view is a fairly pessimistic assessment of the consumer citizen being passive, stagnant and mainly incapable of having thoughts of our own when faced with a free forum- “blogs are a gift to humankind that no one needs.” (Lovink, G. 2007) I would argue that whilst any blog-coordinated social change might be slow moving, there are positive exceptions to this passivity that are indeed ready and prepared to revolutionize the blogosphere as a channel of change. One need only be reminded of the blogs such as Streamtime to recognise that there are bloggers committed to starting changes. Even small shifts in consciousness and small changes in the blogger mentality will produce small shifts in producer/consumer relations. The interaction between blogs and mainstream journalism is where “old and new media collide, […] where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways.” (Jenkins, H. 2006. p3) ― the changes will begin with convergence.
Cultural convergence: the push-and-pull relationship between journalism and blogs
The relationship between the blogosphere and the traditional media sphere provides an interesting insight to the cultural implications of media convergence. The increasing prevalence of blogs has effects that echo in the mainstream media— journalists now turn to the blogosphere as a new gauge of public opinion on controversial issues (Bruns, A. 2006. p1). Instead of ‘gatekeeping’, the mainstream media is ‘gatewatching’ keeping an ear to the ground for content to co-opt (Bruns, A. 2006). The very nature of the relationship between producer and consumer is being renegotiated— traditional media producers no longer have exclusive control over the means of broadcasting a message. Each medium has been forced to learn and adopt the best of the other, as they feed off each other symbiotically. Old media, in particular, has had to adapt and change by updating its format; most news corporations now have blog sections to their websites, and their own bloggers-in-residence. Prominent blog-writers can be employed by mainstream media, just as journalists can have their own offshoot blog. Where traditional media once focused on factual news reporting, journalists are now often expected to be able to comment and elaborate on information. Furthermore, blogs are monitored by reporters to search for new ideas and perspectives to co-opt and circulate into their content.
Blog users are empowered to create, produce and question media messages, as well as choose what content they consume. Whilst they might choose to step back and watch the process with a cynical eye, bloggers do have the potential to start change. The two spheres of old and new media keep each other accountable— convergence could work in favour to re-engage citizens if activism takes further root in the interactive space.
By questioning and badgering, blogs have begun to enhance traditional journalistic practices, “providing the seeds for an incremental, rather than radical, change in how the media reports and disseminates news.” (Gallo, J. 2004) And whilst the blogosphere seems far from producing a grand revolutionary truth or movement, nor is it completely devoid of passion and drive as Lovink suggests. There are bloggers and journalists alike who will continue their “quest for truth” in the constantly shifting media environment and at the very least can keep pushing each other forward.
