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I’ve had posts have had long and fancy references on top that you may or may not actually check, posts titled with fancy and big words and posts where I write in whole sentences, and up until this point, I’d hazard that the reader probably took my words with a lot more faith than they would have if I had presented them in abbreviated words and simpler sentences. All I had to do was follow rules of communication and suddenly, my content became far more credible. In that sense, communication will always have an element of being defined by presentation, though Walker and Mortensen do make note of that. Even the title of this post, is something that only a select group of people will understand. Thus, in conclusion, whilst I believe in many possibilities with social media, I feel people need to remember not to get ahead of themselves.
Links to other posts:
Annotated Bibliography 1 : Introduction to Social Media
Annotated Bibliography 2 : On the Authors
Annotated Bibliography 3: Summary of Reading
Annotated Bibliography 4: Notes on our Method
Annotated Bibliography 5: Blogging Software
Annotated Bibliography 6: Integrity of the Blog
Annotated Bibliography 7: Commercial and Political Value of Blogging
Annotated Bibliography 8: Social Exclusiveness
Annotated Bibliography 9: Symbiosis
Annotated Bibliography 10: </essay>
Posted January 27th, 2012. Add a comment
With reference to: The people formerly known as the audience; Social media. 2011. The Economist, 400(8741), pp. 9
The article from the Economist was particularly interesting because it highlighted a symbiotic relationship between traditional news mediums and online news mediums, such as blogging, tweeting, etc. I defer to a previous post, where I weighed the validity of a comment made in Walker and Mortensen’s writing. This article would probably be one of the stronger supportive writings they could use but I’m still inclined to have a certain level of skepticism regarding blogs as a wholly valid source of information due to the level of misinformation that occurs online. Online, one can ‘dress’ a website to look professional, and ‘dress’ his or her text to carry authority but, in the end, it can all be fabricated. I feel that whilst there is a good ground to say that social media will change communication by ‘adding more’ to how we communicate, I feel it is pretentious to believe that social media will revolutionize communication.
Posted January 27th, 2012. 1 comment
With reference to: Coming full circle; The end of mass media. 2011. The Economist, 400(8741), pp. 16
The article in the Economist (which is written by an anonymous or uncredited writer) highlights a common generalization made of social media; that it promotes social activity and the formation of open and inclusive communities. However, whilst not directly stated, Walker and Mortensen’s writing, with particular reference to the section; Academics and Audiences, shows the rules and practices that exist within cultures in terms of how they communicate. This also manifests in the forms of syntax, polite language, etiquette, and a variety of other ways that we use to consciously or unconsciously target an audience. Thus, communication through social media, including blogging, becomes an activity of exclusion rather than inclusion. Online communities mean people have the luxury of being more exclusive about who exists within their network because the pool of people they can choose to network with are from a global scale rather than limited by geographical location.
Posted January 27th, 2012. 1 comment
Reference: “Blogs: Hype or Public Affairs Opportunity?”, 2004, PR News, vol. 60, no. 18, pp. 1-1
With reference to the reading by Mark Reilly, and my previous blog post, where I talked about the integrity of blogs’ ‘honest’ opinions, this reading gives some details regarding the power of blogs to reach audiences better than many other platforms. What is important to note, is that Reilly goes on to explain the best way to sell yourself to a blog:
“The first and easiest way is to simply join the Blog and make a comment supporting your
issue. Remember, do not try to be someone else or use an anonymous name. If that is not
possible, ask your client or spokesperson to comment on the Blog. If the Blog does not
accept comments directly, send the Blogger a tip. Again, it might be most appropriate to have
your client, a credible third party, or the spokesperson of the campaign contact the Blogger
(with your assistance, of course). Bloggers need to maintain credibility and want to know that
they are dealing with true believers not a paid hand.
Another tactic would be to purchase ads on Blogs that you think attract your audience.
BLOGADS and Goggle’s Ad Sense are the two best Blog advertising networks for political
sites at this point. It stands to reason (although Blog owners will deny it) that if you purchase
an ad on a Blog and then contact the Blog about your issue it may be more receptive to your
request. Just a hunch.
If your goal is to build a list of supporters and to get concerned citizens to send
communications to their elected officials in support of your campaign’s issue, Blogs can help.
Building your own Blog may sound ambitious, but if you have a spokesperson or some
committed followers it might make sense as the best way to raise awareness and recruit
around your campaign’s issue. The technology is relatively inexpensive, but the strategy,
upkeep and maintenance are labor intensive.
The key items to be concerned about are making sure that you have fresh content and
ensuring that you ultimately control the basic tune and content on your Blog.”
Thus, Reilly’s article confirms the strength of blogging as a tool to build up your support base with actual returns, and that in turn gives it a market value. Once it is given a market value, the human desire for profit becomes a major factor in bringing about the death of the blog’s integrity.
Posted January 24th, 2012. 1 comment
A major point that was made by Walker and Mortensen, regarding the place blogging took in society, was the integrity of blogs as honest opinions and perspectives of ‘the people’ regarding the issues that major news agencies constantly tried to be politically correct about or bias in major of corporations and/or the governments. However, we must realize that the ability to publish, with the right to be opinionated, and without the necessity for those opinions to be backed up by facts, there is no way to ensure that these opinions are wholly sincere. A blogger could be paid to write an article with an opinion that was not his own and no one would know. Essentially, when there is no right or wrong, anything goes, including lies.
In my following posts, I will talk about Walker and Mortensen’s arguments with reference to other academic writings.
Posted January 23rd, 2012. 2 comments
Whilst Walker and Mortensen, have highlighted several valid blogging tools, I would like to suggest alternative blogging tools. Firstly, we must remember that blogging is used to expressed personal views, and depending on the writing, can be educated and appeal to certain audiences. To that end, Social Networking Sites have begun allowing writers to ‘blog’; status updates on Facebook, tweets on Twitter and even on image sharing sites like 9Gag.
On Facebook and Twitter, users make posts about whatever is on their mind and that still possesses the same qualities as blogs. Private opinions, put into the public domain, believed to carry a sincerity that’s derived from their opinionated view, and can be responded to by viewers.
9Gag, is a different story, but there is a saying that a picture speaks a thousand words; like so:
IRONY!!!
Just like in blogs and social networking sites, you can view the image, and comment on it, expressing your thoughts on it.
Thus, I feel that a broader look at online expression could’ve been considered.
Posted January 21st, 2012. 1 comment
Whilst they express an awareness of the use of blogging, I feel that their method has been rather narrow. By the way the describe their blogs’ writing, it obviously ends up being audience-specific, which limits the level of responses they get, and thus, affects the validity of some of their claims. The idea that blogging has validity as a research tool, for gathering information, is highly suspect, when you have blogs designed to misinform, such as this.
However, I will concede that blogging can be a useful way of discussing a topic, with all the comments on a post relating to the main post, similar to how it works on forums. However, to maintain the authority of the discussion, I feel that individuals must be individually granted user rights to discuss the topic. Due to the freedom to say things on the internet under the guise of anonymity and the lack of proper or strict penalization for improper internet behavior, there has been a trend of persons online ‘trolling‘. Without controlling access to discussion, I am of the opinion, that the blog can easily lose credibility once ‘trolls’ begin deliberately attempting to compromise the blog.
Posted January 20th, 2012. 2 comments
Blogging has been a rather evolutionary medium. Originally starting out as a weblogging system, it evolved to become online diaries that people would give the links to their friends. Through the trend of these online diaries, blogs gained a certain association with being personal and opinionated but existing with the public domain. Walker and Mortensen describe how communication through blogging has developed due to various factors, such as the change in technology, the change in public perceptions, especially due to events such as the September 11th attacks in America, changes in the freedom of information and expansion of audiences, who desire information in a certain manner..
Posted January 20th, 2012. 1 comment
Jill Walker Rettberg is a professor of digital culture at the University of Bergen. Torill Mortensen is an associate professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, who writes on media studies, reader-response theory, role-play games, Internet Culture, travel, academic weirdness and online communication.
The common understanding of digital culture is largely based around ideas of websites which had the main purpose of being used for communication, such as Facebook, Friendster, Myspace and Twitter. However, we often forget early image boards, forums and even online gaming mediums that resulted in interaction over the online domain. Thus, to truly, look at social media, one must be open to other forms of media which are not used directly for socializing but result in socializing.
Posted January 19th, 2012. 1 comment
Before I approach Mortensen and Walker’s writing on blogging as a social media platform, I’d first like to lay down the grounds for what I will refer to as, social media. The name itself gives enough definition to the term; media that results in a social effect as a result of it’s consumption. In the past, the social aspect of media has always been one of post-consumption. Live musicals, television, film and books have required the consumers full attention, and have be very direct in communicating. Thus, the only time when the consumer socializes as a result of the media is after consumption, through discussion with his peers. A power relation was formed, where the media dictated how the consumer behaved. With new technologies, the user can pause, search for related information, and essentially, go on any number of tangents that they so desire. When you add in, the ability of the internet to allow for instantaneous communication, consumers can share media, edit media, and receive media. The consumers know have the ability to socialize as a result of the consumer now having power over the medium, rather than the other way around.
Posted January 19th, 2012. 1 comment
