BLOGS The New Contemporary Media Landscape BY LAINE ST. PAUL

BACKGROUND A blog is an easily accessible tool for online social interaction allowing normal people to express themselves in an online social environment that is available for anyone to access. As blogs have become more popular, the definition of the term ‘blog’ has changed over time as a blog is no longer solely a list of links the author visited within the day. The blogosphere, or the world of blogs and blogging where everyone has equal freedom of expression, has exploded as over 42 million blog sites exist today.

THE HISTORY OF BLOGS Blogs came about and were allowed for widespread use in the early 1990’s, rising drastically in popularity from then to now. Blogs were originally updated with a text-editor, hand- coded HTML and FTP but now anyone, computer smart or not can publish a blog as there are many popular sites that host blogging. As blogs have risen in popularity over time, many different websites have been created which allow users to create their own blogs. Surveys show how blog posting increased after the events of September 11 th, and how the number of posts tends to increase after large events occur in the media.

WHO BLOGS TODAY? There are three main types of blogging styles today: individual citizens, professional journalists, and news media-hosting professional journalists. Those who blog can be described as opinionated people who use blogs as a platform to communicate their ideas, thoughts, reflections and political views within a post One must remember that blogs may not always be credible as anyone can blog, though most blogs are credible and influential at the same time. Bloggers are credited as the ones who generally reintroduce a topic back into the media.

BLOGS & THE MEDIA Many mainstream news organizations and corporations now host blogs that are connected with their websites. Some of these mainstream organizations include television stations, newspapers and magazines. Blogs gather marketing intelligence by reading comments and other blogs which may show what the general public does and does not support. Blogs are influential in that studies have shown that consumers use blogs to research products, as blogs are convenient and easily accessible. Political blogs have shot up in popularity, with the top 12 most popular political blogs being liberal blogs.

The picture to the right ranks the top 12 political blogs in order of popularity, showing their overall ranking among all blogs and the number of websites that link back to the particular blog. The picture above is a screen shot from dailykos.com.

CONCLUSION Times are changing, and websites are becoming easier and easier to operate, allowing those who are not technology literate to be able to keep blogs. I would like to see where blogs go in the future in a sense of blogs and politics, as blogs are “without bias.” I could see conflict rising between politicians as blogs, as bloggers may post freely, even if their post is not credible, feeding false information into the blogosphere.