L Blogger

Jezebel follows some of the guidelines of Scoble’s principles. “Tell the truth. The whole truth, nothing but the truth.” (Kline & Burenstine,132) Jezebel is not a site that sugar coats any subject. They broadcast news whether its good or bad, that’s what I like about them. Their stories are unique and creative with a little spice to it. Even if its bad, they will criticize the person or subject. The good thing about Jezebel, you will never see a story with false information. Most of their stories aren’t in main stream media either. They cover a lot of politics to the newest gossip of celebs. Another positive aspect of Jezebel is that they don’t write like they are high-tec journalists. They write what they mean like a conversation. The only guideline I don’t think Jezebel meets the principle that states “Link to your competitors and say nice things about them.” They don’t have any links really besides you tube videos. I think if you want to have different standards for your blog, that’s okay. These guidelines are just idea’s when you are thinking about making a blog and I think they are the basic elements for creating one. They are just some idea’s you should think about that a professional is giving advice about.

Nick Denton’s interview was a good position on blogging and how it effects the media and the people. However, he supports that blogging will become a bigger phenomenon in the near future but, it will never take over the New York Times. In addition, he writes “The NY Times have made some mistakes but its been generally authoritative in its reporting on the search.” After all, he is very up in the air about blogging, he was quoted in the press about dampening the advertisement about blogging although he is a big blogging entrepreneur. Besides blogging readers going up 20 percent a month, he believes it will still increase in the next five years more on politics, sex, society, culture and business. Therefore, Nick tells us that bloggers need to build loyalty. Accordingly, Denton makes a good point, that the people of today think that blogging is a new occurrence but has been around for a long amount of time.

“Blogs are different. They evolve with every posting, each one tied to a moment.” I think that the impact of blogging on business is more important that just communication. Blogging is opening new doors to marketing and strategies. Jason Goldman makes a perfect point, “Blogs are what’s causing the Web to grow.” Google,  Microsoft, and more are using blogging to promote and sell advertising for the company. 40,000 new blogs are created everyday that could be in your interest and might possible carry information that you might want or need to know. Bloggers give support to the companies to help build and make it bigger than what is already was. “As the bloggers read each other, comment and link from one page to the next to the next, they create a global conversation.” (Baker, 228) Not only blogging but the Internet provides  us with the knowledge that mainstream media doesn’t, and blogs are known for having more accurate information than the regular media. Blogs provide us with more range of topics while the regular media posts what they want to put in the public eye.

My favorite blog of the week was from Jezebel. This blog caught my attention, http://jezebel.com/357683/us-editor-claims-women-want-covers-that-exploit-female-celebs. I am a huge fan of the gossip magazines even though they are not always true, I still in enjoy reading them. This caught my eye because it mentions how most covers of US. Weekly are mainly about the female celebrities like Britney Spears with all of her problems. The editor insists that “Women don’t want to read about men unless it’s through another woman: a marriage, a baby, a breakup.” This is statement is so true. When you look back a while ago when Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston were on the covering of every magazine, it was all because of the break up/ secret affair that sold so much. Women love to gossip and these magazines prove that. Ms. Min points out, “the fact remains that as a woman in Hollywood, your life is ripe for plundering by gossip blogs and tabloids.” Hollywood has this effect if you’re a celeb. If you want to be popular, your probably in the tabloids because you went out last weekend to a party, got wicked drunk and got a DUI like a certain Lindsey Lohan, has pulled a couple of times. Britney Spears has been criticized in the media for the past couple of years because of all she has been through. I think that she should be left alone, although I like to read about certain gossip but when you invade someone’s privacy like B.Spears, it needs to stop. She needs help and being in the spot light doesn’t help. The only male I have seen in the spot light or on a cover was Owen’s Wilson recently because he tried to commit suicide. Sometimes the paparazzi go too far and get up and personal with a celebrity. If they push too much, something like Princess Diana’s accident might happen again.

I looked up Globalvoicesonline.org. This website is very simply laid out. It has the title Global Voices in green letters at the top of the screen. On top, they have a row of links to click on like countries, authors, links and search.  On the left side of the screen, it has a summary of all the articles on it. Then if you click onto the title, it brings you to the full article. On the right side, it has a map of a country and links below to click on such as the Middle East, North Africa and more countries. The background color is white, simple and neat. These people who blog are from all over the world like Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Mexico, Madagascar, and many other places. This blog is international and they are written by regular every day people, not necessarily anyone famous or specific. There are a couple of articles on elections in different countries, another couple of articles on everyday news in a certain country, and more. Rebecca KacKinnon states, “We want to point out the most interesting and important information that’s coming off the international blogosphere, because if you look at the mainstream media large parts of the world are almost never mentioned.” I think that Global voices definitely are different from the mainstream media. I looked at Cnn.com and looked at some of their top stories and compared them to globalvoicesonline.com, both sites had an article on the Pakistan election. The Global Voices article on the election was a blogger who was telling us how they will or will not vote. While CNN’s article was on the history of the elections and previous prime ministers/candidates this differs from Global Voices. I think when MacKinnon says that blog focuses more on specific and uncovered stories it is true. Mainstream media has provoked only the big news, just like every channel. It is all the same stories on different channels, for example WMUR, CNN, Fox, Abc; they all provide us with the same information unlike blogs. Many bloggers would object that mainstream media is a reliable source for stories. I would totally agree too. J

Blogging is so crucial in our world today and for this one person it was a moment of savor. Waldman posted her thoughts, her sex life and her family on her blog. She was a writer and fell in to loving blogs. I believe when she says, “It’s a remarkable phenomenon to meet thousands of strangers who lend each other emotional support. It’s also a phenomenon to see people open up this intimate and heart breaking aspect of their lives by perusal by strangers.” I agree with that because I was talking to my roommate and she gave me the perfect example of this situation. My roommates brother is a reserved quiet person and doesn’t always express his emotions to his family. Last May, my roommates dad lost his job and while her mother has a debilitating illness, she is unable to work. This caused a lot of hard times and stress for both my roommate and her brother. Instead of holding it in, he visited and joined a pray blog online. They gave him the support that people around him could not give him at that time. Then a couple weeks later, they received a letter from the pray blog group and said that my roommates family was in their thoughts and would pray for them. My roommates brother found support from a blog community just like Waldman did, with the support of the woman who read the suicide note on her blog. Many people turn to blogging when having a hard time or being in a tough situation, to lend a hand.

I think that a live journal or any type of Blog is a good way to express your feelings and emotions with out your parent constantly monitoring your every move. As Emily Nussbaum writes, “For some Journal keepers, the connections made online can be life-alternating.” [360] An example is when J. (one of the bloggers in the chapter) switches from Blurty to Live journal, he starts to meet new people and starting to go to events to become more social. Connecting to others through a community is good  for those who love to write online and you have something in common with people who do the same. Nussbaum states,  “ Blogging is a replication of real life: each pool of blogs is its own ecosystem, with only occasional links to other worlds.” [ Nussbaum358] This insists all different types of people have blogs and it doesn’t matter who you are. In the chapter, we learn that a lot of the people who have blogs or live journals are the “Artsy emo kids”.  This isn’t true, according to Emily, she asks around the high school and finds out that the jocks, popular girls and more do have online diaries. Which may surprise you, and it did M. ( who we read about in the chapter.) For those who talk badly about others, post inappropriate pictures, and do things to threaten others should be monitored other than that I don’t see a problem with having an on line journal to write thoughts and feelings on there.

 Emails, instant messaging, and Social networking interest me because those are what I do everyday and know a great deal about. They are the most common interests to teens and many adults today. I am a big computer person and spend a great deal on the computer during the day, not just for my classes and doing homework though. One of the groups I choose was the Gay/GLBT group because they are not covered a lot in the media. Also, I want to find out how their life differentiates than ours and all the media that covers gay/lesbian life, if at all is negative. I would pick girls because they are also, socially targeted in many aspects of society. I feel as if girls are not always judged correctly in the media. Teens are also, a subject that interests me because I am a teen and from ages 18-21 you change more than you’ll ever change in your whole life. I choose the United States because I live here and know a lot about the country. North America because Canada and US. Have a lot of similarities and I think it would be interesting to relate them together. Europe is another country that I am interested because you don’t hear a lot about them in the media.

Target is the company I choose to write about. Their promise to their costumers is “Expect more, pay less.” On the website, it states “Expect more of everything: more great design, more choices, more convenience, more service and more clothes, houses ware and designer-created items that you will never find anywhere else. And pay less. Its as simple as that.” At the website, if you click under “About Target”, it explains what their “promise” is Expect more, Pay less. Their link is http://sites.target.com/site/en/corporate/page.jsp?contentId=PRD03-001086. Target has a wide variety of choices. A couple friends and I went out to buy leggings for Halloween at target. We bought a pair for 6.99 and as other stores they are much more expensive like Abercrombie for $29.50. After owning a pair of Abercrombie one’s I got a hole in them after only three uses, while with the Target I have had it twice as long and they are still in a good condition. Unlike Abercrombie, Target’s quality was longer lasting and therefore their promise of “Expect more , pay less” was proven by this example. Leggings are just the most recent encounter I have had with their promise. Quote that Target uses is “And since its Target, you know you’ll always find it at as reasonable or yet even surprising price that lets you add high quality design to your life in every room, everyday.”

This reading was about how blogs are used in politics and media today. Blogging is connecting to politics and how you can receive information about each candidate online, along with the opinions of others too. It has become common today to dismiss the United States Media contribution to the field of publicity. The question of how blogging information is real and the truthful about what it is talking about in the blog unlike the television and gossip magazines. Blogging uncovers TheMemoryHole.com blog that states pictures from Iraq of American Soliders caskets that the media never covered. Bush wanted to hide these pictures from the public and they were released on blogs. Media in U.S. always will hide the truth from the public and blogging shows honesty. I think that blogging is a reliable source to find out information about politics and news, like the weather. Kline and Burstien have good examples of how television, magazines and other sources can’t always be trusted. Blogging is important to our society today. More people use the Internet to research and read about everything while they are at work and at home. This book shows people who know nothing about blogging and it really shows you how it effects the everyday world.