MDIA5003 Presentation (Week 4)

1. THE BLOGOSPHERE
Mahum Ali
z3405431

2. OUTLINE
 What are blogs?
 What are they used for?
 Who blogs?
 Why do people blog?
 What is the impact of blogging on traditional
journalism?
 Class Discussion

3. WHAT ARE BLOGS?

4. WHAT ARE BLOGS?
 Hierarchy of text, images, media objects
and data arranged in reverse
chronological order that can be viewed
in an HTML browser
 Includes “posts” or “entries”
 Updated frequently by individuals, called
“bloggers,” using inexpensive or free
software
 Updating and maintaining a blog is
called “blogging” and little to no technical
expertise is required
 Highly interactive – a form of social
networking
 Not static like other web sites

5. WHAT ARE THEY USED FOR?
 Personal:
 Sharing thoughts, ideas, and
commentary on online journals
 Facilitating group discussions
 Networking or communicating
 Announcing events
 Collecting pictures, music, videos, etc.
 Professional:
 E-commerce
 Promoting one‟s business
 Delivering news
 Engaging with customers
 Sharing knowledge

6. EXAMPLES OF BLOGS:
 Personal and Professional:
 Wordpress
 Tumblr
 Twitter (micro-blogging)
 Professional:
 The Huffington Post
 TechCrunch

7. WHO BLOGS?
 Anyone:
 Students
 Businesspeople
 Journalists
 Digital Consumer Report for October 2011
(NMIncite.com):
 173 million bloggers around the world
 Most of these bloggers are young, tech-savvy, and well-
educated

8. WHY DO PEOPLE BLOG?
 Share ideas and expertise
 Keep others up-to-date with news and events
 Socialize with others
 Gain insight in what the audience is looking for
 Self-expression

9. WHAT IS THE IMPACT ON TRADITIONAL
JOURNALISM?  Journalists that blog are able to
express their experiences and be
creative in the articles they write
 The blogosphere has a democratic
environment where:
 Opinions can be voiced and discussions
between readers can take place
 Information can be delivered at a faster
pace and can be connected or linked to
other relevant news articles on several
online news journal sites
 Bloggers and journalists can listen to
and respond to audiences at a personal
level
Print Newspaper  Example: The Guardian

10. THE GUARDIAN
 Founded in 1821 by John Edward Taylor as The
Manchester Guardian
 Paper Form:
 Average daily circulation of 230,541 in October 2011
 Currently suffering from losses: £100,000 a day
 Online Offering:
 2nd most popular British newspaper website
 Archive of 3 million stories
 Daily average of 2,937,070 browsers
 5th most popular newspaper site in the world
 Top stories can be downloaded in PDF format

11. DISCUSSION QUESTION
 Analyse The Guardian web site:
1. Note down two types/categories of blogs available on
the site and who writes them
2. Mention one of the impacts that these blogs have on
mainstream newspapers
3. Tweet your answers with #mdia5003!

12. REFERENCE LIST
 Bricklin, D 2002, „Observations from a weblogger‟, Bricklin.com, viewed 3
August 2012, http://www.bricklin.com/webloggerobservations.htm
 Fleishman, G 2002, „Been “blogging”? Web discourse hits higher
level‟, We’ve got blog: how weblogs are changing our culture, Perseus
Publishing, Cambridge
 Guadagno, RE, Okdie, BM & Eno, CA 2007, „Who blogs? Personality
predictors of blogging‟, Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 24, viewed 1
August
2012, http://osil.psy.ua.edu/pubs/GuadagnoOkdieEno_CHB07.pdf
 Matheson, D 2004, „Weblogs and the epistemology of the news: some
trends in online journalism‟, New Media Society, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 443-
468, viewed 1 August 2012, http://nmd.dsgepub.com/content/6/4/443
 Mutum D & Wang, Q 2010, „Consumer generated advertising
blogs‟, Handbook of Research on Digital Media and Advertising: User
Generated Content Consumption, viewed 3 August 2012, (electronic IGI
Global)
 Winer, D 2003, „What makes a weblog a weblog?‟, Weblogs at Harvard
Law, 23 May, viewed 3 August
2012, http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/whatmakesaweblogaweblog.html