A Summation on thoughts of this medium we call Blogs

My dearest of friend Nicole is currently studying at the University of Windsor finishing the steps necessary to become a teacher. Who knew, but in the modern teaching realm media is actually becoming an important force in the tools necessary to educate the youth of tommorow (NOW HONOUR MY UNDERGRAD UNIQUELY ALREADY, ITS NOT A BA, ITS A BMS).

In the midst of her study a conversation has come up on blogs, and seeing as we are clearly in love she asked me to help her out with a little Blog study and the pros, cons, and questions that arise when looking at the world of web logs. So, even though this will be redundant and known to many of you who read this, I wanted to post the write up I made for her and her studies on what exactly one might think blogging brings to the modern day.

Dewaard deserves some credit for this write-up as it was framed by our comments back and forth of late. Cheers to him.
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Of all forms of media, the new age of blogging takes incredible steps towards a democratic world of journalism, conversation, and the ability for the voices of the people of the public sphere to be heard. It is important though, that people who invest their time in blogs, do not take the world of blog journalism and reporting as actual and true. When one asks whether blogging is good or bad, the answer must always lie as neither, as the use of web logs as a source of information severly blurs the lines of entertainment, news, opinion, and most frequently lies and truth.

On the plus side, blogs can be a great way of getting news & information quickly - from knowledgeable folk. However, blogs can also be propoganda, sales hype, unfounded opinion, narrow & biased slants, or just baldfaced lies. As always when reading or listening to anything, one must first consider the source, then use the writer's point of view as a starting point to do one's homework. Yeah, that means expending more mental energy, but what is the alternative?

In a media saturated age, any form of education via the media must be taken with a grain of salt. Above all else blogs now provide a medium for the many to voice their concerns and opinions any topical in the modern world. From politics to poverty, war to whatever, the blogosphere provides a unique commons for any one with access to the internet to be a part of the popular voice.

This however raises a second issue with the benefits that can often enchant the onlooker into the democratic positives that blogging provides. While yes, web logs open a commons for all to write in, and blogging is the most advanced and incredible form of democratic media available to the common man, it is important to realize that by no means is the blogging world a public nor open source venture.

Blogger, the worlds most dominant web log provider is owned by google. Every blog you see ending in ".blogspot.com" is googles property. Just as Viacom, NewsCorp, Disney, and TimeWarner own the voices of the mainstream media of television, print, and radio, so do private enterprises control the accessibility of the blog world. Though at any point on my private blog I could write "Damn Google, and all its practices", were push come to shove, Google could choose to remove my words and alienate my voice from the world wide web.

While this alone is enough to realize that blogs on the modern web are nothing more than veils for mechanisms of control, it is also important to remember that though the internet is a vast sweeping media, with a larger and more affordable reach than any other of the dominant medium available, it is still a tool for the relatively rich. You will not see many frequent kept blogs from Zimbabwe, or Haiti, or Sudan. And while an incredilbe number of the worlds population can now access some form of global voice via their personal PC's, it will be decades if even ever that the whole world be afforded the luxury that so many bloggers currently have.

With that in mind, there are incredible benefits. With my blog alone (www.heknowswords.blogspot.com) I have been able to maintain contact with friends from Ontario who have moved to Australia, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, England, Holland, Wales, Tanzania, Brazil, Los Angelas, New York, Vancouver, with so many more on top of those few. I have become a global entity without ever leaving the comfort of my keyboard, and I have met and made plans to meet people from places I never thought I would.

As an artist, an aspiring writer, a media literate student, and as simply a social person, I am amazed at the novelty to which blogging provides me in the global village. Everyday I am not only afforded the luxury of writing to as large an audience available to any journalist, I am also given the opportunity to converse, critique, or comment with so many others blogs as they do mine, which in turn creates relationships and furthers the growth of my beliefs and values about people, places, and things all over this planet.

As the world moves from Empires of the Nation State, to Empires of the Transnational Corporation, mediums like that of web logs are a means by which to get under the radar and use the mechanisms of the powerful to create a community of the people that can compete with a world controlled without borders, time, or space. Without a doubt Blogging most certainly provides an opportunity to learn and further the ability of the world's most incredible commodity; the people who live it out everyday.

posted by mr. tomas ubik @ Wednesday, November 16, 2005