My new exercise

I totally agree with Steven Johnson that TV is good for you. I think that it definately CAN make you dumber, (I'm talking about pretty much every show on MTV. Seriously, those shows are so worthless it makes me sick) but it's so much more fun to learn from television and movies, and I think that's better because it keeps my attention, something really difficult for a lot of people. I read in an article back in high school (which I've been unable to find) that this multimedia generation is actually spawning children with so far unheard of hand-eye coordination. Think about it, skilled musicians and artists taking the arts to new places, or better even advanced surgery from more skilled surgeon. This article's hypothesis: computers and video games are breeding a generation of kids with the most intricate hand-eye coordination, and so in tuned with detail.
For this round of posting, I decided to try a little poetry. It's not really my thing, but I thought it would get my brain working in a new way. That is the task for today, right?

Blog-itation exercise

Steven Johnson ("Use the Blog, Luke") got a good bit of attention last year upon publication of his book Everything Bad Is Good For You. Steven Shaviro, a professor at Wayne State University, offered a in-depth and balanced review of the book last May, beginning with this overview:

As its title and subtitle indicate, Everything Bad Is Good For You is a polemical defense of the value of contemporary popular culture. Johnson contests the all-too-often repeated claims that American popular culture is vile and debased, that it appeals to the lowest common denominator, that it is all about sensationalistic exploitation and dumbing down. He argues, instead, that popular culture is actually making us smarter, in ways that can even be quantified by intelligence tests and the like. Johnson’s method of analysis is basically McLuhanesque; that is to say, he pays attention to the medium rather than the message; or (in the Deleuze/Guattari terms that he cites briefly in an appendix) to what works of popular culture do rather than what they mean, what connections they make rather than what symbols they deploy, or what ideologies they express. Rather than lamenting any alleged decline from print/books/literature to the various multimedia modes in vogue today, he asks the McLuhanite question of how these new media engage us, what modes of perception, action, and thought they appeal to and incite, and how this makes for a qualitative difference from print/literary sensibilities.

What do new media forms *do* to us? How do they work on our brains, on our emotional states? Asking these questions presume that spending time interacting with a new media will *do* something to you: it can even make you smarter!

With that assumption in mind, I would like to encourage you in your blogging to try out new things. My fellow writing teacher blogger, Jeff Rice, (also, coincidently, at Wayne State) recently published a short essay arguing that blogging as a medium demands experimentation: none of us really knows what a blog is. We have to play around to figure out what can be done. He cites Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow's group blog, as an example of the good things that can happen when you let yourself experiment:

Some of the most provocative and exciting weblogs are, in fact, those that experiment with content and form: Boing Boing’s daily juxtapositions of Internet oddities and current events, Warren Ellis’ s explorations of fetish, comic book culture, sci-fi, and related topics, Oliver Wang’s Soul-Sides, an archival replay of forgotten soul tracks (and which incorporates music into the blogging experience), dETROITfUNK’s photographic exploration of Detroit’s ruins, forgotten sites, and surprising charms, Wonderland’s mixture of game related and consumer items, and Drawn’s highly visual, daily updates of cartoon and graphic art developments are but a few blogs functioning in a fairly experimental manner. By experimentation, and not by seriousness, they explore how blogging may change or enhance their interests.

With the goal of experimenting and potentially positively effecting the way you relate to the onslaught of information represented on the web, I would like to ask you to spend part of classtime today composing an experimental series of posts. You can mimic what Boing Boing does, or you can do something else. Whatever it is, make it unlike any of your previous posts in the way it manipulates the medium of blogging.

Blogging and journalism

Today's assignment was to consider the relationship between blogging and journalism. As both a budding blogger and aspiring journalist, I'm a little torn. I like blogging, I like journalism. I don't want either to disappear, nor do I want one to be revered over the other.

Of the articles assigned, Staci D. Kramer's "Journos and Bloggers: Can Both Survive?" resonated most with me. Instead of forcing debates of which is better or whether blogging should replace journalism, Kramer refuses to see the two as separate entities. Here she puts it best:

The constant drum beat of the notion that blogging and journalism are mutually exclusive -- that one can or will replace the other, that one is better than the other, that they don't require each other to exist -- damages all involved.

Recognizing that the two mediums are unique yet interdependent certainly appeases my thoughts, but is there truth in it? I'm pretty sure there is, and so is Kramer. Later on in her article, she lists things that bloggers and journalists can learn from each other:

What journalists can learn from bloggers:
-- you can blur the line between the personal and professional without corrupting the process;
-- you can learn to improvise in real time;
-- how to have a conversation with their readers;
-- to be humble - you don't know everything.

Bloggers can learn from journalists:
-- the value of leg work;
-- the nature of accountability;
-- that editing is a good thing;
-- to be humble - you don't know everything.

These are all valuable points on both ends, especially for those wearing press hats. That first point, that you can blend the personal and professional, is especially important, and from my assessment, effective.

Take the Missourian's account of the events that culminated with Quin Snyder's resignation. Our classmate and a lead reporter said the story was the best of any paper that Sunday, and I tend to agree. He and his co-writer could have easily recounted the events in a traditional, inverted pyramid news-story format. Instead, Columbians got a easy to read narrative full of clear voice and conversational dialogue. Using blog-entry characteristics, the Quin reporters turned the article into a true story.

And the first on the list for blogger lessons holds some weight, too. Look at Jim Robertson's blog at the Columbia Tribune. He posted two entries on Jan. 30, the second merely to report information he missed in his first attempt at research. A little more leg work the first time around could have helped his point.

(cross-posted from a melange)

Next Tuesday

I'll post the schedule for the next unit a little later; for now, I'm giving a heads up on the reading for Tuesday. We'll be discussing the confluence between (and divergences among) blogging and journalism--please read and contribute to the class blog!

Tues., Feb. 21: Is blogging journalism?

Please read these before class:

• J. D. Lasica, “Blogging as a Form of Journalism”

• Stacy D. Kramer, “Journos and Bloggers: Can Both Survive?”

• Robert Niles, “The Importance of Blogging in Journalism Education”

• Don Gillmor, Introduction to We the Media

Technology presentation: Justin Light

A question for 4040

So hey, I'm going to try to get some feedback on a particular question I have:

Is it better or worse to publish posts that I started last week? I mean, it shows up on the page, of course, but does anyone ever scroll down there and look for them? Should I just start adding recently finished posts at the top from now on?

Being new to blogging, I don't know if people surf the way I do. I usually go all over a page looking for comments and reading things, so I'm more likely to see new posts from a few days ago. Or do you tend to skim the newest story and move on?

I just want to make it easy for people to comment on my blog (post-december), so advice is appreciated!

Some good reading

I like this blog. Simply put, it's called THE NEWS BLOG. It has some good stuff, the mainstream news stories and also some small stories a lot of the big guys overlook. The writer(s) has a good style, very straightforward and sounds professional. It also has the face and personality that the huge news broadcasts lack. For an interesting take on breaking news, this blog is where it's at.

Another thing I've always been interested in is animation. NOT ANIME, I freaking hate anime. But real animation, for its wit, its simplicity, and its overall message of animation: the best thing about animation is that it engages our imagination, something which we allow to get lazy as we get older. But animation brings it back to us. And animation is limitless. No need for technological special effects, or stunt doubles, or million dollar sets. One is only restricted to the reaches of their creativity. Check out Cartoon Brew for the classics and the best fresh animation coming out. Oh by the way, Check out Bill Plympton's work. He's an animating genious, way better than the more celebrated Don Hertzfeldt. I'd like to write more on Plympton's work, but it might not be entirely appropriate for the class blog. See my blog for some incite on Plymptoons coming soon.

three blog entries

Irregardless is a word

Trent's is one of my favorite blogs to read. It gives me a good fix of celbrity gossip, but I also like the amount of personality he puts into it. This post is a good example of it. I've never met Trent, but I've gotten to know him through his postings. I bet we'd be good friends.

Exxon

This one comes from one of my friend's blogs. I know there isn't much original writing in it, but that's why I like it. His audience is most likely his friends, family and people that know him and thus know his views on social and political issues. By just picking out quotes, he was able to convey his feelings, but still allow his readers to come to their own conclusions.

Anybody else have an ethics issue with this?

This post comes from Fred Vultee's copyediting blog. (Vultee is the j-school's resident copyediting guru.) I like it because it really creates a forum for conversation. The title itself opens it up for question. By placing the article first also allows readers to come to their own conclusions before reading Fred's. That is less intrusive and more welcoming for comments.

Next Week

Today we wrap up the first unit of the class (Getting Started). When we were going over the way you'll be graded for this class, we agreed that I would give you feedback at the end of each unit. Because you just started blogging full-time last week, I thought it would be useful to give this feedback in person.

To that end, I would like to change our class format for next week: we'll meet, as usual, at 3:00, and we'll hear from the person in charge of presenting on each day. We'll also have time for general questions, etc. Then, at about 3:20, half the class will be dismissed. I'll meet individually with each person remaining for about 5-10 minutes: we'll go over your blog, your goals for the blog and the class, and we'll talk about where your current level of blogging is placing you on the grading scale.

Will that work for everyone? Let me know--here or over email--if you have any questions about this plan and/or if you have any specific questions you want to make sure we address when we talk.

Linked!

Did you know this very class has been blogged? Check out these links:

"Blogging in Theory and Practice" (from weblogg-ed)

FYI: A whole course on blogging (from a course on Writing for the Web at Eastern Michigan U)

There's more: go to technorati and search for "Blogging in Theory and Practice." Some people even comment on specific posts--we're in the network!

Posts I Like

Here's the problem: I love short posts because I am usually skimming things in about 30 seconds.

Bora
Nonetheless, I love Bora Zivkovic's entire blog, aptly named Science and Politics. If you go look through his posts, you'll find it's a current alphabetical list of research blogs and articles.

Ok, don't all roll your eyes at once. I don't actually think about science all the time. But when it's time to find new and old links to continuing research stories, I think this is the best tool I've ever seen. It's so hard to trace a research project from the beginning through different research journals. Not every article gets in to the good journals, so researchers have to vary their submissions. It can be a real pain to search and search for a single topic through the years.

This site is maintained by a single guy, though, and I don't know if he lists sites based on his own biases. But just look at him. He's so nerdy and cute! He couldn't possibly be pitching his angle. So, much love to Bora.

Elise

(Image from www.elise.com, back by popular demand)

Believe it or not, someone really did find out how to bake the best pie crust in history. I made a killer strawberry-rhubarb pie last August, and kind of accidentally found this site while searching the web for help. I used this recipe, and to date, my friends remember that pie. I think that the diagrams and the links in this post are so helpful to explain any missing details.

SteveJames (not Rick James)
I realize that I'm not really doing too great a job with linking the exact posts I like. However, the highest concentration of posts I like to read is found at SteveJames' blog Round the World in 2005: A Year in the Life. It's a journal of his travels from January 31, 2005 to January 15, 2006 literally around the world, except for the Middle East and Midwest, which he avoided for some reason. The posts themselves are not always well-written, probably because he's been writing them really fast from Internet cafes. But you can actually hear his British accent as on the Christmas Day post, when he refers to holidays celebrated in England.

What's really funny is that you can contribute to his travel fund right there on his blog. I highly recommend looking at some of his photo album, too, if you have time. Also if you've never looked at Travelpod.com, it's really fun. I wish I could travel a lot more, but I don't have the means at the moment, so I live vicariously through the bloggers who do roam the world.

A few good blogs

As I've mentioned before, I tend to read the blogs of people in my field or in similar fields. The content of the blogs, then, may not have as wide appeal as some, but I think I can generalize about what makes them good blogs, all the same.

So here are a few blogs I enjoy, with links to exemplary posts. I'd like to take a look at these in class and talk more about what seems "exemplary" to me (and you!).

Collin vs. Blog:
"If only they would feed me"
"Interpellation"

Earth Wide Moth
"Forming with little hands"
"Rrove"

Culture Cat
"Noted and recommended"
"Digital scholarly publishing: beyond the crisis"

E-mail, the E is for Expensive.

Ready to pay for e-mail? Well, get ready, because AOL and Yahoo are starting a US Postal Service-esque system, and soon will start charging companies to send e-mail. They're founding a system of putting stamps on e-mail "to get e-mail where it ought to go". The rationale is that businesses will then accept only certified e-mail, which will cut down on the amount of spam flooding mailboxes everywhere.

The major e-mail account providers may also consider expanding the practice to private surfers, if this corporate test-run works well. For now, the charge is just a quarter of a penny to one whole penny per e-mail. I know, break the piggy bank, eh? But as we've seen with our own snail mail stamp prices (now up to 39 cents), that figure may start the same uphill trend.

Should this sending charge be expanded to all AOL and Yahoo accounts, I'm betting the public probably won't want to deal with a complicated system of paying e-postage, which may expose credit card numbers to hackers or malfunction. Personally, I love e-mail because it's free and fast. Who wants to start PayPal'ing to send a quick note to Aunt Marge? Mm not me, thanks. But if we can't pay that bank-blistering quarter of a penny, do we have to live without e-mail?

David Sheets of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch offers another option: blogs. He proposes that 2006 might be the year that we start to see the death of e-mail, and an increasing use of blogs as direct communication:

"Think of it: Blogs are mostly personal correspondence, anyway. Imagine subdividing a blog into different pages, with each page devoted to correspondence for one person or a specific group. The blog writer then creates a subscription feed for each page and offers the feed to only preferred readers.

This way, subscribers know there’s a new 'blog-mail' when the feed stream updates. So maybe, instead of e-mail, we’ll have 'e-feeds' or 'feedmail' occupying our time.

Of course, spammers will find a way to make paid e-mail work for them, too. By then, perhaps we’ll be too busy with our blog-mail to notice."

I find the idea that blogs on the Web, the most public outlet, could in time substitute for password-protected e-mails humorous. But charging postage for e-mail will probably cause problems down the road, and blogs seem like the best alternative.

[cross-posted on Post-December.blogspot.com]

Presentation Schedule

Tuesday Technology Presentations: How to enhance your blog
[schedule deleted]

Thursday Discussion Presentations: Blogs in the news

[schedule deleted]

Why "transparency"?

Let's try something a little different, even though it may overload blogger. I'm going to pose a question for discussion, and I would like each of you to add a comment. But as you comment, please take into account not only the original question but each of the previous comments, as well.

Today's readings addressed the issue of anonymity, with one suggesting that keeping your blog anonymous is a good way to avoid getting in trouble, and another arguing that anonymity violates blogging standards of transparency. He recommends simply using common sense to avoid posting anything that might get you into trouble.

Would you or are you blogging anonymously? Why? Why not? Here's one person's defense. What's yours? (For doing it or not.)