Brave new world of the bloggers
Brave new world of the bloggers
Bloggers rose to fame with critical acclaim in 2004, winning recognition from one of the world's most well known journalists, John Pilger. The word 'blog' was even named as dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster's word of the year, after receiving the most online lookups, according to its survey. Rodney Appleyard reports on blogging's phenomenal growth.
Now that bloggers have established a reputation for themselves, and the word 'blog' has even been entered into the Merriam-Webster's dictionary, it seems that 2005 is going to a very bright year for this new wave of writers.
The ability to create a blog has been available for some time, but what is becoming apparent now is that the quality of blog coverage is getting better all of the time.
By definition, a blog is a journal that is available on the web, using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog.
The journals are usually arranged in chronological order, with the most recent ones coming first.
Esteemed journalist and author John Pilger praised bloggers recently for their eyewitness accounts in Iraq. Speaking at his recent book launch in Glebe, Sydney, Pilger praised bloggers for providing real news in comparison to the propaganda conveyed by many Western journalists.
There have been many other examples recently of bloggers setting up instant humanitarian services, which prove to be extremely valuable to many people around the world. For example, a blog has been set up to provide information on how people can help those badly affected by the earthquake and tsunami in South East Asia. It offers daily news on the aid effort; details on how the nations can be helped and information needed to reunite families.
So where will the power and impact of the bloggers end? In some quarters, bloggers are being considered to be a huge threat to mainstream news organisations. A new civil rights movement is even being formed through cyberspace to create a bill of universal rights for bloggers. Will the power go to their heads, or do they deserve the power to enforce freedom?
The blogging civil rights movement was started by Ellen Simonetti in January. Simonetti was sacked from Delta Airlines last Christmas because of her blog, a case which generated headlines worldwide. She is calling for a 'Blogger's Bill of Rights', whereby bloggers all over the world will have: "Freedom to blog. Freedom from persecution and retaliation because of our blogs."
She has compiled a list of 38 'blogophobic' companies that have fired or disciplined an employee because of his/her blog.
The Committee to Protect Bloggers, founded by journalist and blogger, Curt Hopkins, aims to protect bloggers from State-led human rights abuses, such as imprisonment and torture. Abuses are currently happening in Iran and China.
Anne Bartlett-Bragg, an academic for the faculty of education at the University of Technology Sydney, believes that the recent emergence of web-blogging is only the tip of the iceberg and we can expect even greater things from this 'new medium' in the future.She is also holding a conference in May to provide a venue for academics to come together and realise how much value blogging can really have on the world.
"I think there is a lot more to come from the blogging community, and it can be used in a lot more ways. We are just scratching the surface at the moment.
Some people think it is just people expressing their egos. But it is much more than that. Blogs are providing an alternative to mainstream journalism and they are becoming very useful resources for educational research too.
"A hybrid language is being developed on the blogs too, similar to that used in emails and text messages. It's a mixture of the spoken and written word. Blogging is a completely new form of expression, allowing important information to reach a huge potential audience, that couldn't be reached before the Internet.
"I don't know where itís going to end-up, but hopefully we will have more of an idea after our conference in May. This will give people involved with social sciences, politics, IT, cultural studies, educational issues, language & literacy, knowledge management and many other themes, a chance to discuss how the value of blogging can be harnessed and united in a way that can be used positively in societies around the world."
Visit: http://incsub.org/blogtalk/ if you would like to get involved with the conference on blogging yourself.
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