“Blogging has great appeal to people but little value to society.” Do you agree?

In the age of new media, blogging, being one of the most popular digital interactive platforms, is playing an increasingly important role in everyone’s life. Thanks to its user-friendly panel, blogging has successfully inspired independent creation and distribution of material. The two-way and dynamic interaction between authors and audience encourages active participation in contributing to the progress of our society. Through the medium of blogging, ordinary people are taking their first steps towards active citizenry. They are heading towards a more matured and democratic society.

Blogging attracts people by allowing them to become citizen journalists who practice self-publishing and self-supporting at a low cost. In the mainstream media, only those who are qualified as professional journalists have the opportunity to write to a large audience. Ordinary citizens without high language proficiency and outstanding writing portfolio may not have their wishes of conveying their personal views to the public fulfilled. The traditional media which intends to involve the widest range of audience thus remains as a one-way information distributing channel that only accepts input from the minority. Nonetheless, the developing blogsphere brings the majority comfort by providing them with a user-friendly publishing stage that has a worldwide pool of open-minded and active readers awaiting. It costs nothing more than a computer and an agile brain to be a citizen journalist who can talk to the public in words, pictures, audios, and even video clips. No wonder Technorati tracks 50,000 new blog posts an hour. The surging pace of blog posting and the fast growth of blogger population evidently show people’s great interests towards blogging.

The conservatists are often skeptical about the value brought by blogging to society. In the absence of editors for blogs, their concerns over the accuracy and justification of content on blogs are understandable. Although many people are attracted by blogging, they will more likely turn to the mainstream media for facts, with the knowledge that professional journalists have access to a more well-laid network and a wider pool of resources which can be utilized to report the truth. Indeed, the newly booming blogging which runs on individual basis may be incompetent in providing facts in comparison to the established mainstream media.

However, we need to understand that the function of blogging is different from that of the mainstream media. While the traditional media targets at informing and educating the masses on the news, blogging focuses more on sharing and exchanging opinions as readers are free to comment on the blog posts and authors can reply accordingly. Closer relationships among citizens with shared concerns or interests are thus cultivated. Through the increasing interaction, they gain more understanding of others who have different backgrounds and contribute to creating a more harmonious society. In political blogging which generates discussions over political issues, this interaction marks citizens’ first steps toward a more democratic society as they acquire more engaged and active citizenry. The Singapore government acknowledges this two-way engagement and participation online and thus puts forward REACH (Reaching Everyone for Active Citizenry @ Home) which includes blogging as one of the main services in its official web site.

In addition, blogging amplifies an individual’s voice by empowering him to disseminate information speedily and economically and even appeal for action. The value of this empowerment is very precious to society when disaster strikes. Take the Sichuan earthquake for example. The local residents who had access to the Internet asked around for specific life supplies via blogs, online forums and instant messaging. The details of items needed urgently, the locations of the victims who needed those resources were all clearly listed. Netizens from other parts of China thus mobilized to raise funds and to show support for the victims. Because the large number of local residents were more clear about the real needs of the victims, they were doing a more efficient job than the limited number of professional journalists who were either located in the region or sent for the first hand news. More lives were saved and sufferings were reduced as aid arrived at the right place in time, thanks to the fresh and accurate information. Blogging also passed the sense of patriotism and unity which the Chinese developed after the Sichuan earthquake. The value of blogging is indeed eminent in this rising country which has the world’s largest number of Internet users now.

Blogging’s appeal to people is growing with the blogger population worldwide. Its two-way interactive nature accelerates people’s progress to a democratic society. Each individual member of society can voice louder with the help of blogging and this is very helpful in aiding the victims when a disaster happens. The developing blogsphere should not be viewed as a replacement of the traditional media in the future. Rather, it is an unprecedented interactive platform which encourages quality thinking and reasoning, and assists people in the arduous journey of finding the truth in society.

刚刚看完. 心里非常非常难过。
沉沦在Ralph Fiennes 的眼神里。