Lovink (Reader, page 222) also argues that: “No matter how much talk there is of community and mobs, the fact remains that blogs are primarily used as a tool to manage the self.”
Lovink (2007) has strongly criticized the web blogging in his article ‘Blogging, the Nihilist Impulse’, he argued that ‘blogs lead to decay’ (2007, p5), and he sees most anonymous blogs merely self-promotion, they are lack of an ability to do enough research and investigative journalism (2007, p38). I agree with him in some aspects that Lovink has suggested in his article. I have to admit that citizen bloggers often interested in rumors and news scoops, and what most bloggers do is repeat the content in op-eds and letters, and post them in their personal blogs. There are rarely bloggers will do a depth research and claim personal opinions of it and have a thorough conversation with their readers.
Glenn Reynolds has stated that ‘a good blog is a personal voice and a rapid response time’ (2007, p59). However, there is a common sense among bloggers that they wish their blogs can be as ‘hot’ as possible, and there can be as much as ‘hits’ as possible, as a result, the blog website become a platform to show off the bloggers their self, but not much substance message contain in it. For example, Lovink has addressed a quote in his article: ‘Hi, I’m a reader. I’ve recently started a blog of my own at blogspot.com, and I wonder if you’d consider adding a link to me” (2007, p28). People ask for payback as a reader of your blog, and it becomes a trend in worldwide blogs now. The second point that Reynolds has mentioned is ‘a rapid response time’ (2007, p59), but it seems like it is too hard to achieve for most amateur bloggers, because people have to ‘spend a great deal time policing the posts, and seeding out spam and trolls’ (Lovink 2007, p28), and if you leave the comments section open, you have to answer the endless technical question form the registrants as well. Therefore, we can see now many blogs choose to switch off their ‘comment’ section, and do not have any interactivity with their readers. This would make the intention of starting a blog meaningless since there is no conversation between the writer and the reader (Kline 2005, p130).
Even though I agree with most of the bad aspects of blogging as Lovink suggested, but I still support amateur bloggers just like you and me should keep blogging, not only for ‘manage the self’, but also to share life experiences and happiness to others. Because when sometimes if I see new born baby’s picture that my friend posted in her blog, I will feel very warm and optimistic, especially when I was upset. Therefore, if people record something that is health and positive in their personal blogs, I think it should be encouraged, but back to words, if people spread the fake messages and just for show off in their blogs, I agree with Lovink that there is no necessarily to blog any more.
Bibliography:
- Lovink, Geert. (2007). ‘Blogging, the Nihilist Impulse’, in Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture. Routledge: London.
- Reynolds G. An Army of Davids: ‘How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths’. Nashville, Tenn.: Nelson Current; 2006.
- David Kline, Dan Burstein, Blog!, New York: CDS Books 2005, 130
Xi Chen (Tracy) 