When approached with the question of the relevance, or indeed, the importance of blogging as a medium in this digital age I am confronted with the stark reality that I, personally, do not blog, and that I do not see this as a deficit in my technical prowess. The thing that I find interesting is that it is not a lack of capability that determines my lack of blogging, but rather a lack of desire. I have grown up with blogs being part of the spam floating around the internet, and, while I have always had the capacity to make one, I have never had the inclination. To take the notion a step further, I have only rarely had the inclination to read one as well. They simply do not interest me.
What it comes down to is that I do not feel blogging is actually part of the conversation. It is a very personal, indeed self-indulgent, medium. It is a journal with an audience, but without any critique or real accountability. There is a distinct difference between blogs and tools such as facebook or wikipedia. These tools are mediums through which a discourse between parties takes place. Each participant is accountable to the masses, therefore creating an atmosphere of social justice that mediates the medium.
This is not to say that there is no value in blogs, that is not the point I am trying to get across. Rather I feel that blogs are more of a passing, or fleeting aspect of electronic media, they are not a necessity, and they are not a gateway into the electronic world. If you do not have facebook in this day and age you can be essentially ostracized from aspects of society, I do not feel the same is true in blogging.
No comments:
Post a Comment