Thousands of people are exposed to the media everyday, namely news, e-mails, blogs, SMS, social networking and etc.
Most of the time the news media serves a useful purpose by keeping the public informed. But in recent years an increasing number of media channels affect the position of the journalism gradually.
Today, I would like to mainly focus on blogs.
Before we begin I would like to look at a record of my two weeks personal media use and production.
| Blogging (my blog & others) | Facebook | Online news | Radio | Twitter | TV | General surfing internet |
9/8 | 180 mins | 15 mins | 60 mins | 30 mins | N/A | N/A | 120 mins |
10/8 | 180 mins | 30 mins | 90 mins | 30 mins | 15 mins | N/A | 120 mins |
11/8 | 240 mins | 15 mins | 90 mins | 15 mins | 60 mins | N/A | 60 mins |
12/8 | 120 mins | 10 mins | 30 mins | 15 mins | 60 mins | N/A | 60 mins |
13/8 | 210 mins | 20 mins | 60 mins | 30 mins | 40 mins | N/A | 30 mins |
14/8 | 120 mins | 30 mins | 120 mins | 60 mins | 20 mins | N/A | 60 mins |
15/8 | 60 mins | 30 mins | 120 mins | 30 mins | 60 mins | N/A | 60 mins |
16/8 | 150 mins | 15 mins | 30 mins | 45 mins | 40 mins | N/A | 90 mins |
17/8 | 180 mins | 20 mins | 90 mins | 20 mins | 60 mins | N/A | 180 mins |
18/8 | 210 mins | 20 mins | 60 mins | 20 mins | 45 mins | N/A | 120 mins |
19/8 | 180 mins | 15 mins | 60 mins | 30 mins | 60 mins | N/A | 120 mins |
20/8 | 240 mins | 20 mins | 60 mins | 20 mins | 40 mins | N/A | 150 mins |
21/8 | 240 mins | 20 mins | 90 mins | 20 mins | 60 mins | N/A | 120 mins |
22/8 | 90 mins | 10 mins | 30 mins | 30 mins | 15 mins | N/A | 60 mins |
Total | 2400 mins | 270 mins | 2700 mins | 395 mins | 575 mins | N/A | 1350 mins |
For the last two weeks which is from 9/8 to 22/8, I spent 31% of my time on Blogging, 35% on online news, 18% on general surfing internet, 7% on Twitter, 5% on radio and 4% on Facebook.
Recent research
There is an increasing numbers on people who use blogs. 70.3% people did not have blogs before but it increased to at least 67.8% people have one blog after JOUR1111 course.
It shows the important role of a blog playing on journalism and communication.
What is it?
A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse sequential order. Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular topic, such as local news, popular issues or some function as more personal online diaries.
Why do I use blogging?
At the beginning, I started to write a blog and look at others blogs because of my course JOUR1111 at university.
But one day, I found an article Ten things every journalism student should know by Sarah Marshall. It’s about some of the tips they come up with, most are from other journalists after they asked those who follow @journalismnews on Twitter for advice.
One of the tips is ‘Write, write, blog’. It said anyone starting out to be a journalist should create a blog. If we don’t have a particular area of journalism we want to go into, pick a subject we are interested in and write about that. Follow others writing about that subject. Also, I can read some of the excellent blogs by pofessional journalists, professors like Mindy McAdams, Mark Briggs and others, or fellow schoolmates on my course.
This gives me motivation to blogging.
How and where do I use this media tool?
Whatever my area of journalism and communication– from broadcast to local newspapers to public relations – I no doubt have to keep an eye on the subject areas that interest me within my field of expertise and both latest world and company news.
What’s really nice is that if I find some blogs I interested in, I can subscribe them and RSS feeds which is very convenient! It is worth exploring and curiously addictive once start browsing.
For production, my blog usually combines texts, images, and links to other blogs, websites or other media related to its topic.
One of my favourite characteristics of a blog is the ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format. This allows me to interact with my readers.
Can bloggers be recognized as journalists?
I've read some online news or articles talking about this issue like Jay Rosen's essay, What's Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism? and What's Conservative About the Weblog Form in Journalism?. David Akin responsed to Jay Rosen's essay also, Blogs and Journalism -- will this discussion never end? .
To me, professional journalists can have their own choices to be one of the bloggers doesn't mean that all of the bloggers can be called journalists.
u In journalism, barriers to entry are high. With the weblog, barriers to entry are low: a computer, a Net connection, and a software program like Blogger or Movable Type gets us there. Everyone can be a blogger and there are no professional requirements.
u Bloggers do not remark on the responsibility providing accurate and reliable information sources and things that they said, but journalists do.
u Professional journalists have to go out and find stories and report those realities to public properly. However, bloggers are commenting on the particular issue but not reporting since they can choose whatever topics they like at home and add their own opinions on it.
u Journalism traditionally assumes that democracy is what they have, information is what they seek. Whereas in the weblog world, information is what we have—it’s all around us—and democracy is what we seek.
How is it of use to journalism and communication?
However, it enables us to hone our research skills and build up sources.
It is great to create set up RSS feeds and subscribe blogs that interest us.
Create an online portfolio and publish the stories/posts on our own blog and pitch them to news desks. Hence, we can build our own media platform and send it to employers whenever they need in the future.
What we should do is to take advantage of what the Internet has to offer; it’s not just a series of tools for entertainments.
We don’t have to use them all, but we need to know what’s out there and be able to utilize new tools (many of which are free like Bloggers and Wordpress) at our fingertips to better do our job.
Although I think bloggers are not equal to journalist, journalists and public relations should be adaptable for the multimedia age anyways.
To me, this is definitely a basic and necessary preparation work for journalists and public relations.
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