Rant # 34: Weblogging, As A New Form Of Journalism

With the advent of computer technology is the emergence of Internet. This allows people to connect with one another regardless of distance. That and the creation of the World Wide Web browsers in 1990’s certainly transformed Internet from a mere communication tool into a certifiably revolutionary technology (Kotler and Amstrong, 2004).

As reported, in the final decade of the twentieth century, Internet users worldwide grew to almost 400 million. And in 2003, web surfers worldwide reached 533 million and is expected to approach 1.5 billion by 2007. Researches say that the growth of internet access among the world citizens will still continue to explode (Kotler and Armstrong, 2004).

The influx of Internet and Internet users allows the divergence of different media. Print media outfits like Philippine Daily Inquirer has already published their own website, with it are news or features that can also be read in the news paper. Television networks like ABS-CBN have come up with their own interactive website too. With that, we can say that this has caused revolution to mass media especially in the field of journalism with the popularization of the so called web logging. John Gallo of Northwestern University noted that web logging has made journalism more democratic and helps demystify the craft by exposing the wizard behind the curtain of the media establishment (http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/weblog_journalism.html).

Web log or blog is a website where regular entries are made (http://www.wikipedia.com/). Here, one can publish a commentary or a story like news, feature or anything about something without necessarily undergoing a process of editing from a specific structure. As long as one knows how to use the internet, has access to it and story to tell, no matter what background one has, whether he/she is a journalist by profession or not, one can publish a story and will have it viewed by the public.

Here in the Philippines, the PCIJ or Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism hosted one of the country’s successful blog sites. As Pabico commented in Rojales’ Report, “At one point, we were registering 356, 000 visitors, 8 million hits, 3 million page views, and 822 gigabytes of data transfer!” (www.itworldcanada.com/a/enterprise-infrastucture/94b4580a-11be-4794-8aa4-2d402f8797a3.html)

Taking the definition of Journalism by Moyes and White (1978), Journalism is the collection, writing, editing, and dissemination of news material. Its impact in society is of so critical a nature that it has become a factor in the formulation of public policy. It is, as well, a barometer of public attitude, a consideration of importance in assessing social change – which in turn stimulated a wide range of new activities, new attitudes, new methods, and new ideas in a profession that had demonstrable need of them (Hohenberg, 1978).

The nature of blogging as against blogging as the new kind of Journalism has been a popular debate at this time.

John Gallo’s article said that “a second line of criticism central to the discussion of Weblogs stems from the lack of transparency of media organizations and from the unidirectional flow of information from reporter to recipient. The perceived lack of transparency coupled with the criticism of media integration, leads to the charge that news and opinions are shaped or even manufactured as infotainment before being disseminated to the wider public” (www.itworldcanada.com/a/enterprise-infrastucture/94b4580a-11be-4794-8aa4-2d402f8797a3.html) thus the contention of it being a form of communication does not hold true.

Brian Carroll of Berry College on the other hand said that “blogging and journalism do not have to be dichotomous; the two divergent schemas for understanding ethos do not have to be mutually exclusive, particularly in a convergent media environment where, ironically, most of news websites, including those by broadcast media, are presented using the rhetoric and metaphor of print newspapers” (www.blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere.com) contending that it can at some point be considered as journalism.

Whatever reasons they may have, the main question regarding the debate as to whether or not Weblogging can be considered as a new form of journalism is: Can it still be qualified as such given that information being fed do not undergo a process of selection like traditional journalism does? This primarily questions the quality of the article both types of Journalistic media produce.