toothpastefordinner.com
I would like to eschew a practical discussion of the definition of a blog or a history of blogging, something someone with my level of expertise on the writing end of blogging wouldn’t be able to with any kind of insight beyond rehashing a wikipedia article (which seems itself overly diplomatic), and instead share what distinguishes the experience of reading a blog, in my opinion, from getting information from most sources.
I. Specificity
A common thread among the blogs I come across and come back to is a certain specificity of topic, regardless of the number of writers. A favorite of mine, for example, is TELEVISUAL, a blog from Aymar Jean Christian at UPenn. It tackles contemporary American pop culture from a critical and academic standpoint with a focus on representation of historically disadvantaged groups. That’s a topic that won’t appeal to many, but that can be an advantage in that it can produce a community of commenters with those narrow interests who have a mutual interest in keeping conversation at a high, relevant level. Even a personal blog from someone with a wide area of interests must have some topics onto which it returns fairly regularly so as to keep readers (who aren’t the author’s friends) from coming back. Yes, a blog topic can be too specific. For example, a blog about a single movie or book’s influence on culture might not be able to update often with quality posts as one with a slightly broader outlook.
An example of a blog which I have no incentive to return frequently because its topic is too broad for me to know if I’m interested in on a daily basis would be a breaking news blog on a major newspaper website. It can’t develop a signature theme or tone since its focus is on breaking the news rather than on delving deeper into issues behind them. These tend to have lower quality interactivity between writers and readers and the writing tends to read just like the news on the rest of the site, which seems to defeat its purpose.
II. Tone/Partiality
As I just alluded to, there seems to be something off about a blog post which has the same stiff tone as a wire report in a newspaper. When journalism particularly is undertaken in a blog, it is expected to come along with a distinctive voice, which covers both tone and also a pre-established worldview. When I took New Media and Society whilst abroad in England we covered critiques of new media journalism, and specifically blogs, extensively. The amount of credence given to blog journalism from mainstream journalists citing sources particularly is a contentious issue, because for many the word ‘blog’ implies a certain amount of partiality and a distinct lack of formality or professionalism. Whether this is a valid concern is debatable, I would only contend that blogs function best when they exist alongside traditional media in something of a symbiotic relationship.
III. Interactivity
A devoted, but still diverse, readership of a well maintained blog hopefully makes for constructive commenting and ideally frequent interaction between writers and readers which lends a more communal air to the blogosphere while still allowing writers control of the topic and tone of their blogs. Interactivity via comments is one of the reasons why blogs seem to bridge what one might call an “authority gap” between writer and reader which makes reading something sometimes feel distant. Blogs are unique in having comments now less than ever, and it would be interesting to investigate how the presence of comments on newspaper articles, for example, has or has not affected their content and made it more similar to the content, tone etc. of blogs. A difference I still see on full-fledged blogs rather than on other kinds of online publications is a high level of interaction between commenters and the original writer which extends the “authority” of the post into the comments section.
Speaking of which, won’t you interact with me below the line? Is my idea of a blog decent or way off?
middleeastaidan 
What is a Blog?
I would like to eschew a practical discussion of the definition of a blog or a history of blogging, something someone with my level of expertise on the writing end of blogging wouldn’t be able to with any kind of insight beyond rehashing a wikipedia article (which seems itself overly diplomatic), and instead share what distinguishes the experience of reading a blog, in my opinion, from getting information from most sources.
I. Specificity
A common thread among the blogs I come across and come back to is a certain specificity of topic, regardless of the number of writers. A favorite of mine, for example, is TELEVISUAL, a blog from Aymar Jean Christian at UPenn. It tackles contemporary American pop culture from a critical and academic standpoint with a focus on representation of historically disadvantaged groups. That’s a topic that won’t appeal to many, but that can be an advantage in that it can produce a community of commenters with those narrow interests who have a mutual interest in keeping conversation at a high, relevant level. Even a personal blog from someone with a wide area of interests must have some topics onto which it returns fairly regularly so as to keep readers (who aren’t the author’s friends) from coming back. Yes, a blog topic can be too specific. For example, a blog about a single movie or book’s influence on culture might not be able to update often with quality posts as one with a slightly broader outlook.
An example of a blog which I have no incentive to return frequently because its topic is too broad for me to know if I’m interested in on a daily basis would be a breaking news blog on a major newspaper website. It can’t develop a signature theme or tone since its focus is on breaking the news rather than on delving deeper into issues behind them. These tend to have lower quality interactivity between writers and readers and the writing tends to read just like the news on the rest of the site, which seems to defeat its purpose.
II. Tone/Partiality
As I just alluded to, there seems to be something off about a blog post which has the same stiff tone as a wire report in a newspaper. When journalism particularly is undertaken in a blog, it is expected to come along with a distinctive voice, which covers both tone and also a pre-established worldview. When I took New Media and Society whilst abroad in England we covered critiques of new media journalism, and specifically blogs, extensively. The amount of credence given to blog journalism from mainstream journalists citing sources particularly is a contentious issue, because for many the word ‘blog’ implies a certain amount of partiality and a distinct lack of formality or professionalism. Whether this is a valid concern is debatable, I would only contend that blogs function best when they exist alongside traditional media in something of a symbiotic relationship.
III. Interactivity
A devoted, but still diverse, readership of a well maintained blog hopefully makes for constructive commenting and ideally frequent interaction between writers and readers which lends a more communal air to the blogosphere while still allowing writers control of the topic and tone of their blogs. Interactivity via comments is one of the reasons why blogs seem to bridge what one might call an “authority gap” between writer and reader which makes reading something sometimes feel distant. Blogs are unique in having comments now less than ever, and it would be interesting to investigate how the presence of comments on newspaper articles, for example, has or has not affected their content and made it more similar to the content, tone etc. of blogs. A difference I still see on full-fledged blogs rather than on other kinds of online publications is a high level of interaction between commenters and the original writer which extends the “authority” of the post into the comments section.
Speaking of which, won’t you interact with me below the line? Is my idea of a blog decent or way off?
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Tagged authority, blogging, commenters, interactivity, new media, traditional media