Blogs cover a very wide variety of styles and approaches. Blogs written by journalists, or housed on the websites of media organizations, are also widely varied. To understand blogs, blogging, and the audiences for blogs, we have to begin by looking at real blogs and comparing them. This presentation was given to 3rd-year journalism students at Rhodes University, South Africa.
3. What is a blog?
• A personal diary?
(Does a blog resemble a diary?)
• The same as a newspaper column?
(Does each blog post resemble a
columnist‟s writing?)
• What makes a blog different from other
kinds of writing and other kinds of
websites?
8. “The Lede is a blog that
remixes national and
international news stories —
adding information gleaned
from the Web or gathered
through original reporting —
to supplement articles in The
New York Times and draw
readers in to the global
conversation about the news
taking place online.”
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/
12. Links to outside sites
Use of videos and photos
Perspectives on the news (instead of
reporting the news)
13. “Generally, the blog author establishes
a relationship based on trust
with his or her audience. This relationship
is intentionally personal, in contrast
to the professional objective detachment
of a journalist … Bloggers, however,
speak directly to their readers.
„The personalities of the writers come
through. That is the essential element
of blog writing‟ (Winer, 2003).”
Armstrong and McAdams (2009)
15. What do the blogs have in common?
• On each post
• On the blog pages
How are the blogs different?
16. Questions
• Is there a set length for each blog post?
• Can a blog have more than one author?
• Do all blog posts have links?
• In one blog, do the individual posts differ a lot, or not
much?
• Do all posts receive about the same number of
comments?
• Are the paragraphs typically short, or are they long?
17. 1. Audience
2. Tone
3. Links
4. Images and video
5. Comments
6. Frequency
Considerations
Here we see some typical aspects of a blog’s appearance and organization. SOURCE http://www.theguardian.com/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog
You can see the diary-like aspects. Given the topic of THIS blog, you can also see a resemblance to a regular column in a newspaper. SOURCE http://www.theguardian.com/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog
“Blog” (short for web log) refers to the entire collection. SOURCE http://www.theguardian.com/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog
“Post” refers to one entry, one instance of writing. A blog contains many posts.SOURCE http://www.theguardian.com/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog/2014/may/08/children-on-the-breadline-cost-of-living-crisis-debt
These are some examples of how “writing for online” is different.
Quote from Armstrong, C. L., & McAdams, M. (2009). Blogs of Information: How Gender Cues and Individual Motivations Influence Perceptions of Credibility. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 14, 435–456. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01448.x
IN CLASS ASSIGNMENT http://bit.ly/mmjblogs
OUTSIDE ASSIGNMENT http://bit.ly/mmjblogex
Rhodes University School of Journalism & Media Studies | Mindy McAdams | contact: http://mindymcadams.com/ 12 May 2014