Wall, M. (2005). Blogs of war: Weblogs as news. Journalism 6 (2), 153-72. Retrieved from http://jou.sagepub.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/content/6/2/153.full.pdf+html
- Wall review different blogs, including blogs that initiated during the Iraq war. The main premise behind Wall’s article is to inform people how blogs are changing journalism in general.
- Blogs that appeared during the war period let to a “new genre of journalism – offering news that features a narrative style characterized by personalization and an emphases on non-institutional status” (p. 154).
- People were creating their own news and in a way became online journalists.
- The author defines news, stating that news is normally shared with people. News also provides up-to-date information.
- Journalism can be seen as the promotion face for news.
- I agree with Wall, that “news had become a commodity” to keep up with audiences and to satisfy their information needs (p. 154).
- During the 1960s journalism has changed dramatically, especially when it comes to the writing style (p. 155).
- Again, in the 20th century journalism changed again, due to the ownership changes and to accommodate audiences.
- Online journalism became popular, due to social networking platforms and new technology.
- Social networking tools such as blogs enable people to write their own news and information.
- Wall (2005) argues that blogs can contain “breaking stories” (p. 157).
- Blogs have become a medium, where people can participate with others.
- Interestingly when bloggers wrote about the war, some were against the war and some supported the war.
- The study in regard to blogs brought forth significant information – people wrote more newsworthy information.
- It was noted that these blogs were written more on a personal note, providing information from the heart.
- It is also obvious that most information on the blogs were sourced from other sources.
Gordon, J. (2007). The mobile phone and the public sphere: Mobile phone usage in three critical situations. Convergence 13(3), 307-319. Retrieved from http://con.sagepub.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/content/13/3/307.full.pdf+html
- Mobile phones are part of our society and play a vital role in everyday personal communication.
- People make use of multimedia messages (MMS) or text messages (SMS).
- Gordon (2007, p. 312) provides examples where people have used their mobile phone in devastation. For example, during the Pacific Tsunami, warnings were forwarded via SMS.
- SMS were also sent to find out if people survived the Tsunami.
- Mobile phone were also used in the bombing attack in London
- In a sense people become journalists with their mobile phone. According to Gordon (2007, p. 312), “the mainstream media has been quick to take advantage of this citizen journalism and mediate it within its own parameters”.
- Mobile phones not only provide information to others, but also capture valuable images.
Wales, J. (2005). Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jimmy_wales_on_the_birth_of_wikipedia.html
- Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia in January 2001
- Wikipedia is owned by the Wikipedia foundation.
- Core of Wikipedia is to provide a free encyclopedia for everyone – with free licensing.
- Funded by donations from the public.
- 600 000 articles in English and a variety of other languages.
- Very popular website where people can edit pages collaboratively.
- Servers are managed by volunteers – participatory culture – where everyone contribute.The volunteers also manage the information.
- 90 servers in three locations.
- Question: Why is the website so good? Wales (2005) states there are quality information too.
- Wikipedia is for neutrality, and have a neutrality policy. The NPOV is a social concept of cooperation, avoids some philosophical issues (Wales, 2005).
- There is routine vandalism – however administrators fix vandalism issues.
- There are diverse contributors from all over the world.
- Every change is monitored on the site. People get RSS feeds and emails when changed are made.
- There are new pages feeds. So, every time a page is created, people will know.
- Vast majority of people are a tight nit community.
- Administrators decide which information must be deleted. There are people voting on what should be deleted or not.
Make note of the blogs you visit and the features of this blogs that attract you
There are some really great blogs. For example:
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/blogs (Here are 15 most popular blogs of April 2011)
I select blogs based on the following qualities:
- Colourful
- Interesting information
- Quality of information
- Creditability
- References included
- Language used
