So this is my blog about media criticism. I'm CSCEnglishbabe, and I'm here to talk about criticizing the media or something like that. I've read two pieces for today's blog entry and both were rather entertaining. The first was a transcript from CNN Crossfire: John Stewart's America.
In this piece Jon Stewart spoke candidly, and more seriously than he is known to usually do on his comedy central show "The Daily Show." He was actually a guest on CROSSFIRE. And what I loved, mainly cause I was/am a big John Kerry fan, was how the discussion revolved around the election. The other interesting thing is how the hosts of Crossfire just seemed to completely disregard Stewart's questions or refused to allow him to honestly comment on things that bothered him. That bothered me, because it seemed to me, to be an indirect reflection of how our government has been working, and how slyly it’s been working to keep our citizens in the dark about everything.
The second piece I read was an article from “The New Yorker” by Rebecca Mead, entitled “You’ve Got Blog.” The piece was written in the year 2000, when I had no idea even what a blog was. I didn’t even know they existed.
In this article, Mead basically tells what seems to be the story of Blogger.com. It tells a tale of Meg and Evan, co-founders of Pyra, a company that produces Blogger. I found the article to be interesting. Not so interesting as the Jon Stewart piece because I’ve been blogging on Livejournal for a while and that’s very similar to Blogger. But it still was a cute read because it had this little romance thing going on between Meg and some fellow blogger named Jason and it was just a well-done piece.
So what IS a blog? A blog to me, is an online journal that can be about pretty much anything. You can make it private, depending on the site, and your preference; you can make it devoted to Media Criticism, or Lord of the Rings, you can create an RPG or Role Playing Game, where you post in communities and create a story. You can create or pick a user icon, you can put as much or as little information on yourself as you like, make your journal friends only or public and can even comment on yours and other people’s blogs. It’s pretty fabulous. Especially if you’re a computer and internet geek, like me.
So what is a blog for? Well, I half-answered that question already. It’s for pretty much anything you want it to be, and it’s usually written, though people have been known to include pictures on occasion. It can be for personal use, recording your own thoughts and feelings, events, etc. But it can also be for a common interest, politics, media, fan clubs/forums, creating stories/RPGs and even “unspeakable” things like sex, which years ago no one would have ever dreamed of even speaking about with other people…
Most people seem to use blogs for personal expression, at least that’s what I’ve found in my experience, they also seem to use blogs to be funny, share their lives with other people, keep in touch, etc. Some implications of blogs and blogging are both positive and negative. If a person writes the wrong thing on their blog, they can easily be ridiculed by other bloggers or readers of blogs. A person’s blog entries could be private and their personal feelings could be completely disregarded and offended if they allow too much of themselves to be exposed to the whole world wide web. Also, people could stalk an individual and hurt them if the blogger gives out too much personal information.
Overall I like blogging a lot; I’m a more avid livejournal user, but who knows: maybe Blogger.com will snag my interest more this semester. I doubt it, but you never know, and you gotta give new things a try sometimes, ya know?
In this piece Jon Stewart spoke candidly, and more seriously than he is known to usually do on his comedy central show "The Daily Show." He was actually a guest on CROSSFIRE. And what I loved, mainly cause I was/am a big John Kerry fan, was how the discussion revolved around the election. The other interesting thing is how the hosts of Crossfire just seemed to completely disregard Stewart's questions or refused to allow him to honestly comment on things that bothered him. That bothered me, because it seemed to me, to be an indirect reflection of how our government has been working, and how slyly it’s been working to keep our citizens in the dark about everything.
The second piece I read was an article from “The New Yorker” by Rebecca Mead, entitled “You’ve Got Blog.” The piece was written in the year 2000, when I had no idea even what a blog was. I didn’t even know they existed.
In this article, Mead basically tells what seems to be the story of Blogger.com. It tells a tale of Meg and Evan, co-founders of Pyra, a company that produces Blogger. I found the article to be interesting. Not so interesting as the Jon Stewart piece because I’ve been blogging on Livejournal for a while and that’s very similar to Blogger. But it still was a cute read because it had this little romance thing going on between Meg and some fellow blogger named Jason and it was just a well-done piece.
So what IS a blog? A blog to me, is an online journal that can be about pretty much anything. You can make it private, depending on the site, and your preference; you can make it devoted to Media Criticism, or Lord of the Rings, you can create an RPG or Role Playing Game, where you post in communities and create a story. You can create or pick a user icon, you can put as much or as little information on yourself as you like, make your journal friends only or public and can even comment on yours and other people’s blogs. It’s pretty fabulous. Especially if you’re a computer and internet geek, like me.
So what is a blog for? Well, I half-answered that question already. It’s for pretty much anything you want it to be, and it’s usually written, though people have been known to include pictures on occasion. It can be for personal use, recording your own thoughts and feelings, events, etc. But it can also be for a common interest, politics, media, fan clubs/forums, creating stories/RPGs and even “unspeakable” things like sex, which years ago no one would have ever dreamed of even speaking about with other people…
Most people seem to use blogs for personal expression, at least that’s what I’ve found in my experience, they also seem to use blogs to be funny, share their lives with other people, keep in touch, etc. Some implications of blogs and blogging are both positive and negative. If a person writes the wrong thing on their blog, they can easily be ridiculed by other bloggers or readers of blogs. A person’s blog entries could be private and their personal feelings could be completely disregarded and offended if they allow too much of themselves to be exposed to the whole world wide web. Also, people could stalk an individual and hurt them if the blogger gives out too much personal information.
Overall I like blogging a lot; I’m a more avid livejournal user, but who knows: maybe Blogger.com will snag my interest more this semester. I doubt it, but you never know, and you gotta give new things a try sometimes, ya know?
posted by cscenglishbabe at 7:50 PM
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