Sunday, October 26, 2008

Welcome to the Blogosphere

As we learned in class last week, bloggers can make a difference in what news we see in mainstream media. The example of Trent Lott offending most of humanity, was a story kept in the public eye by bloggers until mainstream media could no longer ignore it. People who saw his remarks, either first hand on in original mainstream reports, and kept posting stories on various blogs. Eventaully mainstream media returned to the story, and the whole affair culminated with the resignation of Senator Lott.

One blog, The Daily Kos( http://dailykos.com/ )is an example of how many people can post stories on many topics in one place. Kos has strong readership, and many contributors. This marks a changes from traditional journalism in that anyone can write a blog, and publish most anything. In the past, non-journalists were limited to letters to the editor and the occasional freelance piece.

As I said, anyone can blog, but there does need to be some interest in what they are saying. If they are interesting, and or credible, other blogs will pick them up, and the will be shared with more people, via links and reposts. What is written is not driven by the bottom line, but by what bloggers are seeing as a need. As blogs like Kos builds readers and credibility, more people are turning from traditional media to the blogosphere.

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