What's a "blog?" Blog is short for "Web Log." What's a web log? Glad you
asked! Blogs are|
like a cross between the editorial section of a newspaper and an Internet
message board. It's
a place where you can share your stories, opinions, observations, anecdotes
and witticisms about
a particular topic, in this case the Coachella Valley. Some Blogs resemble
message boards in that
anyone who wishes to contribute an opinion may do so, but unlike message
boards, the writers
typically use their own names rather than anonymous aliases. In this respect
they resemble the |
editorial page of a daily newspaper, but a Blog is not necessarily edited.
Beginning with the printing of the first bible on Guttenberg's press, modern
Newspapers, TV and
Radio might be considered the Blogs of the rich and powerful. But the term
was originally used to
describe any web page which expressed the opinions, beliefs and observations
of anyone who had
the technical ability to post them on the Internet, but not the financial
resources or political clout to
publish them in more traditional media. If the Internet had been around during
the days of the
American Revolution, King George's court would have probably branded Thomas
Paine a
"Blogger" on Benjamin Franklin's Pony Express.
Initially, the term was used to describe what were essentially the published
personal diaries of the
"Bloggers." Many of these tended to use a free form "flow of consciousness"
style of writing. (Sort
of like this.) As such, establishment media commentators often used it
dismissively during debates
to marginalize and/or devalue the views of their opponents as the long winded
manifestos of deranged
or at best disenfranchised megalomaniacs. The term seemed destined to become
synonymous with
"lunatic fringe" and as such invalidate any and all opinions expressed on
the Internet unless of course
they carried established media brands. The net effect was to discourage Blogging,
and hence free
speech, less any serious journalist or an aspiring one be branded with this
stigma. Furthermore, with
recent scandals involving plagiarism at two of the nation's leading newspapers,
it is easy to deduce
that if a few "legitimate" journalists thought they could get away with
plagiarizing each other, how many
more of them would be less concerned about plagiarizing some poor marginalized
Blogger? Originality
is a key element of quality in the marketplace of ideas and under these
circumstances Bloggers could
not hope to compete.
It could be speculated that this perception was consciously encouraged in
an effort to squelch the
development of new brands in a new media they and their existing competitors
were already battling
over for dominance, but perhaps for fear the stigma would stick to their
own on line publications,
established or not, main stream media began to embrace and legitimize Blogs.
More than likely they
just figured out that despite their best efforts, Blogs were popular with
the people and so should be
exploited in a way to attract viewers and readers and increase their own
advertising rates.
It remains to be seen if once adopted by main stream media Blogs go the way
of the Makarana.
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