Being a newcomer to the world of blogs and blogging in general, apart from my very brief attempts at keeping a very personal blog in a diary format on a social networking site, I found Aimeee Morrison’s piece highly enjoyable and quite interesting. My basic understanding of a blog was that it involved publishing my own thoughts and views on the world and life in general on the web for all to see. I thought there was something prestigious or powerful tied up in blogging the ability to change a persons opinion or to give insightful information from your own perspective on things that truly interested you. The ability to share your thoughts with others that a person would only read it if they had a genuine interest in what you had to say. It turns out my idea of what blogging entails was very limited and quite lacking in what the reality of the blogging world really is.
Morrison’s piece begins by introducing the blog and what formats a blog can take. Blogs according to Morrison strech far beyond the scope of what I understood. She explains that a blog can be a journalistic, political, academic tool, it can be a source of entertainment or a way to bring people with similar interests together, it can be a way to earn a respectable income or a huge income and a manner in which aspiring persons can attain fame and recognition. It is not merely the personal device I thought it to be. Morrison provides the reader with a clear description of what a blog is, in its most basic form an online page made up of individual sections of text known as posts. These posts can include pictures, photographs, videos, hyperlinks, audio files and can be as short or as long as the writer desires.
Morrison explains how one of the most interesting features of a blog is its function for conversation. A follower of a blog can comment on what the author has written, which allows for conversations to begin, questions to be asked, and most importantly ideas and thoughts to be shared. In the academic world this allows students to converse with peers and lecturers at a level which they may be more comfortable with, rather than raising questions in a large lecture hall. It also allows students to raise questions and share ideas which enhances their knowledge of a subject and questions can be answered from a much larger perspective than ever before.
The blog as a tool for aspiring artists, writers, etc… is also very important as it provides people with a stage to put themselves out there and feel like their efforts are not going to waste. However this too is problematic as the blog world is now dense maze and trying to find what you are looking for or what interests you can be next to impossible. Morrison explains that there are now “special-purpose search engines” that can assist in tailoring your search results to your desires. There is also a “blogroll” which is a “sidebar link” that helps the reader to easily access other blogs of similar content.
The world of blogging has vastly expanded in the last decade from its humble beginnings in double digits to literally millions that are active today. Aimeee Morrison’s essay is a fine introduction to the vast world of blogging but can at times be a little tedious to read and follow. As Morrison herself explains that the blog world can at times be static in terms of its problems with searching for information, this piece too can be somewhat static in places. However overall it is a very informative essay and does provide the reader with a proper introduction to the world of blogs.
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