Week 6: Issues in Blogging

For this week’s blog, I read an article and watched a couple of videos about blogging.  It is very interesting to see the many issues that surround this media format. Therefore, I will be concentrating on the various issues surrounding the blog sphere.  The YouTube videos I watched were Networks, Power, and Democracy and Digital Youth, Social Movements, and Democracy in Brazil. I read Weblogs and the Public Sphere by Andrew O'Baoill. This week’s installment will be focusing on the practice of blogging and these following questions: What are the tools and techniques being put into practice? What are the key issue(s) outlined in or underlying the text (think in terms of Green’s model: operational, cultural and critical)? What are your feelings and opinions on the reading?

Green’s approach concentrates on 3 aspects: operational, cultural and critical.  The operational component concentrates on using the language system to decode and encode in a range of contexts.  The cultural part uses operational strategies to receive and transmit meaning. The critical dimension recognizes the socially constructed nature of knowledge and literacy practices.  The critical dimension also involves considering alternative solutions. 

As far as the operational skills needed to function in the blogosphere, it is very easy to write a blog.  This short paragraph will also address the tools and techniques being put into practice in the blogging world.  A perfect example is this blog you are reading right now.  It was created on Blogger. I logged on through my Google account, began typing and then clicked publish.  The process is so easy that minimal computer literacy is necessary to blog. In O’Baoill’s article this is described as an aspect of inclusivity.  By inclusivity in the blogging world, the author writes that “participation is open to all.”  Anybody with an internet connection can get involved in blogging for no financial charge.

The cultural dimension is where it gets interesting.  Blogging in many ways has created its own culture.  Another idea mentioned in O’Baoill’s article is, in a blog “any issue can be raised for rational debate.” Because blogging is an open forum for anyone to publish their views online, there will be a multitude of blogging topics and possibly a multitude of opinions on each individual topic.  Besides getting information from traditional sources, blogging allows alternative topics and subjects to be amplified within the information world.  Also the ability to comment on other peoples blogs has effects on the cultural dimension.  Lively discussions on blog posts whether positive or negative are conducted in the cultural dimension as users attempt to create meaning in their world views.

In the critical dimension we consider alternative solutions.  One of the videos from this week is a most powerful information resource concerning blogging in the critical dimension, Digital Youth, Social Movements, and Democracy in Brazil.  In this video Raquel Recuero gives a discourse on how blogging and social media is making social and political changes in Brazil. She touches on many issues.  One of her topics was an online debate concerning the construction of a controversial power plant.  Another subject was gay marriage.  The most poignant subject was of the favelas or poverty stricken areas of Brazil.  Some residents of the favelas are given internet access and tools to create blogs, websites and other social media to report on the living conditions in impoverished communities.  This technology has given a powerful voice to the oppressed members of society in Brazil.    By having a forum to criticize the powers that be in Brazil, blogging has empowered the powerless.  This is a prime example of blogging in the critical dimension.

            One of the topics that interested me was the rank of the blogs.  How do blogs get views? In  Networks, Power, and Democracy, Saskia Sasson explains that the top blogs may not be alternative news.  The top blogs may be connected to established publications commenting on what they believe to be the top stories.  They get the majority of the views because people generally want to read what their friends think is important.  These top stories get momentum and do not necessarily represent the alternative views that Sasson believes was the original intention of blogs.  O’Baoill comments that some blogs get readership because of connections to bigger organizations.  These 2 commentaries are congruent in my mind.  Connected blogs get views, which gains momentum exponentially.  Both O’Baoill and Sasson believe that blogs are not as “democratic” as they were intended to be.  I hope this opens a lively discussion.

O'Baoill, A. (2004). Weblogs and the Public Sphere. Into the blogosphere. Retrieved June 23, 2015, from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/weblogs_and_the_public_sphere.html