Down with blogs… so here's another

If you believe the hype, blogs are as significant as the invention of the printing press for their ability to change the way the world will be seen. If on the other hand you believe the counter-hype, blogs are a self-indulgence which pander to dull people’s misguided beliefs that they have something interesting to say.

Journalists have their own takes on blogs – broadcaster Mark Lawson, for one, says that “although the word blog suggests attitude and subversion, it’s really just a hi-tech kind of diary and carries the identical risk of Pooterism”.

Some believe that only journalists should really be allowed to write endlessly about themselves. Others believe blogs soar to beautiful new interactive heights. A third group don’t understand blogs, but are terrified of being left behind. —Giles Wilson —Down with blogs… so here’s another (BBC)

An unusually broad, inclusive assessment of blogs, recognizing that the kind of blog that the pundit blog — the kind of blog that journalists are most intersted in, and therefore the kind of blog that gets most coverage in the mainstream media — is only part of the picture.

That “Pooterism” is a reference to Charles Pooter, a literary character whose fictional Diary of a Nobody lampooned middle-class self-importance and obliviousness.

Thanks for the link, Rosemary.