Transcript The blog as a genre

Citizens, Pundits & Scholars:
In Defense of Blogs
Kalina Grewal
Mark Robertson
Scott Library
York University
Overview
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What is a blog?
A global phenomenon
Why read blogs?
Blogs and the academy
Blogs and the library
Discussion
Blogs?
What are they?
Definitions
One definition: “frequently modified web pages
in which dated entries are listed in reverse
chronological sequence” (Herring, 2004)
Creates an environment that fosters dialogue
Used for various purposes – personal,
professional or commercial
Features: A read/write medium
Comments
-readers respond by writing
comments
Trackbacks
– Links to other blogs that
cite the posting
– Incoming links
Blogrolls
– Outgoing links to other
blogs of interest
Features: RSS feeds
• RSS feeds
– Really Simple
Syndication
– Allows readers to
subscribe to a
website
– New postings are
delivered to an RSS
reader in
standardized format
Blogs in a
global perspective
Blog growth
Estimated total number of blogs:
Technorati tracks 63 million blogs
Gartner Group tech analysts estimates 100
million by middle of 2007 (BBC News, Dec.
14, 2006)
Blog growth
from Dave Sifry, State of the Blogosphere, 2006
Blog postings per day
from Dave Sifry, State of the Blogosphere, 2006
Blog readership by country
Blogs by language
Case study: Iran
• Population: 69 million people
• 7.5 million web users (largest group in Middle
East)
• 700,000 bloggers?
• Substitute for suppressed, reformist press
Case study: China
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Population: 1.3 billion
123 million internet users
20.8 million blogs?
Most popular blog in the world: Xu Jinglei
Alternative to state controlled press
Relatively high level of trust in web-based media
Why Blogs?
What’s the value for researchers?
The potential of blogs
 Citizen journalism
• Agenda Setting vs.
• Grassroots Perspective
 Creation of communities
 As primary sources
Citizen journalism
• Defined as the act of citizens playing an
active role in the production and
dissemination of news
• The trend has been fed by technologies
such as: blogs, mobile phone cameras,
YouTube, etc.
Agenda setting
• Agenda setting a common critique of
mainstream media
• Bernard Cohen in 1963 stated:
“the press may not be successful much of the time in
telling people what to think, but it is strongly
successful in telling its readers what to think about”
• Mainstream media have practices that privilege
certain stories and certain people
Grassroots perspective
• People who are generally ignored or
misrepresented by the media are attracted
to blogging for several reasons:
• safe space to express identity
• communication between citizens in closed
societies or repressive regimes
• mainstream media do not accommodate
discussion and collective action
Citizen Journalism:
Mission Statement:
Global Voices
Bangladesh
www.globalvoicesonline.org
Global Voices website
Citizen
journalism
Ethos of Citizen
Journalism
Drishtipat:
“hear, speak
out and help”
January 11, 2007
State of Emergency Declared in
Bangladesh
Violence claims more than 40 lives and
media freedoms curtailed.
“Amid the chaos, the government has
been cracking down on media freedoms - but some Bangladeshi bloggers have
not been cowed.” Mark Oliver, Internet
World News
Creation of communities
Many-to-many communication
Platform for discussion
Blogrolls create networks of blogs
Multiple blogospheres
Bloggers share knowledge and collaborate
Communities
of interest
An example
from Six Months
in Hanoi
Blogs as primary sources
• Historical value
• Document events as they happen
• More likely to provide a personal perspective on an
event
• Sociological value
• Linguistic analysis
• First-person narratives
• Eg. Narratives of girls with eating disorders;
suidical behaviour
What is the academic value of
blogs?
Pedagogical tool
Object of study (primary source)
A means to stay informed
The role of communities in
scholarly communication
Academic researchers embedded in
communities
The expert research model “requires a long process
of acculturation…participation in a system of
informal scholarly communication, and a view of
research as a non-sequential, non-linear
process….”
Gloria Leckie, “Desperately Seeking Citations”
A means to a scholarly end…
Not themselves scholarly
Provides opportunities for information sharing
and debate
Role in informal scholarly communication
Awareness and alert system
Blogs and the role of libraries:
a discussion
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Organization
Access
Preservation
Teaching
Del.icio.us webliography
http://del.icio.us/citizensandpundits
Contact
Mark Robertson
Scott Library, York University
[email protected]
Kalina Grewal
Scott Library, York University
[email protected]
Webliography:
http://del.icio.us/citizensandpundits