Bloggers and the Media

With the advancement of technologies like smartphones, laptops and tablet computers, and the increasing number of users on the World Wide Web many people are turning to bloggers to receive information rather then through more traditional media outlets such as newspapers, radio and television.  Russell (2008: 66) has compared elite media and institutions with bloggers and considered the following question ‘do bloggers, with their editorial independence, collaborative structure and merit-based popularity more effectively inform the public’ (Russell, 2008: 66).

To a certain extent bloggers have the ability to more accurately and efficiently inform the public on a range of issues.  Some scholars have celebrated the way in which DIY media has expanded and facilitated ‘the development of an engaged and participatory transnational culture’ (Russell, 2008: 66).  Professor, Yochai Benkler, in Networked Publics was quoted as suggesting that the ‘network, with its variation and diversity of knowledge, time, availability, insight, and experience as well as vast communications and information resources,’ has essentially allowed for bloggers and online users to effectively replace traditional forms of the media’s function as the fourth estate and society’s watchdog.

According to the Pew Research Center (2011) the Internet is catching Television as the US’ main source for national and international news.  The Pew Research Centre claims that currently 41 per cent of Americans use the Internet for their international and national news.  The research also found that ‘people continue to cite the Internet rather than newspapers as their main source of news, reflecting both the growth of the Internet and decline in newspaper readership’ (Pew Research Center, 2011).  The increase in people turning to the Internet shows a discontent with the traditional ways people were receiving news and information.  Russell (2008: 66) contends that this trend could be attributed to ‘web publishing tools and powerful mobile devices, combined with an increasing scepticism toward mainstream media, [that] have prompted readers to become active participants in the creation and dissemination of news’.  Fast and expedient online blogs, specifically Twitter the online social networking and micro blogging website, are now regularly attributed with breaking news before major international media organisations.

Social media has proven many times that it leads the way in breaking news stories, whether it is a local issue or of international significance many issues and information is received via social network sites and online blogs.  An example of this is seen through the recent death of Osama Bin Laden.  Keith Urbahn, chief of staff for former Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, broke the news of Bin Laden’s death over Twitter before any of the major international news agencies.  Furthermore Claudine Beaumont (2008) from The Telegraph reporting on the 2008 Mumbai attacks stated that ‘mere moments after the first shots were fired Twitter users in India, and especially in Mumbai, were providing instant eyewitness accounts of the unfolding drama’.

Evidence of the effectiveness of blogging webpages is witnessed through Twitter and other similar blogging websites.  Bloggers have the freedom to report, inform and share any information they wish, giving them a huge advantage over other more traditional forms of media and press who often have to follow the agenda of their employers and editors.  An additional advantage of using blogs to gain information and news as opposed to traditional media forms is how the collaborative blogging structure operates.  Information can instantly and constantly be commented on, amended, updated and corrected, giving the public instant and evolving information on any range of issues.  Additionally through the structure of most blogging websites it is easy to follow or have access to the most popular and trusted blogs through merit based popularity rankings.  Popularity ranking allows people to instantly logon and gain a sense of who is a credible and reliable source by observing the number of people subscribing to the blog, their rankings and comments they posted.

Bibliography

Adrienne Russell, Mizuko Ito, Todd Richmond and Marc Tuters, ‘Culture: Media Convergence and Networked Culture’, in Kazys Varnelis (ed.) Networked Publics, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008, pp. 43-76.

Pew Research Center (2011), Internet Gains on Television as Public’s Main News Source website, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1844/poll-main-source-national-international-news-internet-television-newspapers 10^th May.

The Telegraph (2008) ‘Mumbai attacks: Twitter and Flickr used to break news’, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3530640/Mumbai-attacks-Twitter-and-Flickr-used-to-break-news-Bombay-India.html 10^th May.