Why Blog?

Blogging has become a popular thing among people around the world. Many people have who are studying abroad, or have traveled places keep in touch with friends and family at home by blogging. I know for me, I have multiple friends blogs that I try to follow because they are abroad. And blogging is not just for people who are traveling. Ever seen the movie Julie & Julia? If you haven't, it's about this woman blogger, who has challenged herself to cook every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook, and after she completes each recipe, she blogs about it. (1) So with all this blogging, which is increasing in popularity and power, where does this leave traditional media?



As the "Blogosphere" article stated, "bloggers tend to gravitate towards events that affect personal rights and cultural norms, as well as new technology, or issues that are news related". (2) But I believe that traditional media has to stay in order for bloggers to blog. If we didn't have traditional media, where would we base all of our information off of? (video) In this video, Matthew C Nesbit, a professor of Communication at American University and blogger, states that bloggers do use the traditional media as part of their blogs. The only difference being that bloggers will redirect or refocus what they want their readers to look at more specifically about the news. It seems that more so, traditional media is changing, and that it is starting to incorporate blogs, so instead of traditional media 'dying out' I would say that is is evolving. One example is 60 Minutes is checked by bloggers. So now by incorporating blogging, there is more of a checks and balances situation evolving. (Youtube) It will be interesting to see how traditional media and blogging intertwines with each other.

In one of the videos I found, the interviewer asked about specifically traditional print media, meaning newspapers, magazines, etc. True, media is definitely spread more quickly via the internet, but would it still be considered traditional media? To this question, I am not sure of the answer. When thinking of traditional, I think about print media, more than online newspapers, although the online newspapers are doing the same thing, with just faster updates. (3 < this should be the link to the video I am talking about, it is also below if the link doesn't work) Another interesting thing Erick Schonfeld, co-editor of TechCrunch, said about print traditional media was about the economy. Once the economy improves it will be interesting to see the future of print traditional media. Much of the ads that used to be in newspapers, are going online as well as other places. (Notice now how there are commercials before movies when you go to the movie theater?) So will these newspapers have enough money to continue if they don't have sponsors? This is an interesting point to think about, and I am not sure what will happen.


All in all, I cannot say for sure if traditional media will truly die out. Yes (in my opinion) print traditional media has become less popular, but it is still around, and many still read it, so I think it will be around for a while longer. Whether it will evolve so much as to not be considered traditional media anymore will be something I have to wait and see.






(1) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1135503/
(2) http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/blogosphere
(video) http://bigthink.com/ideas/21831
(Youtube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YieUI2t2SQ
(3) http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe96ps_how-traditional-media-will-change_lifestyle