Weblogging Trends

I’ve been a very irregular blogger but I read a series of blogs almost daily. I bookmark any blog I find interesting and recently there’ve been a lot of Bhutanese bloggers who’ve caught my eye.

Blogging is an extension of free speech online, only that it gets recorded for people to see anywhere, anytime, over and over again. If one has an opinion that needs to be voiced out there is no need to wait for a public forum in the real life to bring it up. Such forums are a rarity nowadays and the lack of time on everyone’s hands makes it kind of difficult to attend those that are there.

Meanwhile, a blog is a public domain where the words need not be spoken out loud and there is no need for appearances, not even a face to be put on it. It can be laid out in the convenience of our homes or our offices, even from our mobile phones, and it gives us time to gather our thoughts and arrange it in the form of proper sentences. Such efforts go a long way than raising a voice in a public meeting where one’s disposition matters more to the listener than the ideas being shared.

Now, if these ideas are of any good in policy making, and if they are read by the right people, then their voices will have been heard.

Blogging makes a huge impact in presenting a citizen’s view of the world and that in a democratic society should be the first place to look for politicians and bureaucrats alike. One can take the example of the crackdown on blogging during the recent protests in Iran, and the impact that it made on the world stage. Very soon, blogging will be considered a birthright by a large section of the general population and the politicians better be taking note of that. If they want to keep their fingers on the pulse of today’s society, one of the ways of doing it is to keep track of blogs and begin using them as tools for outreach and opinion forming.

I read a lot online; many of those are from foreign writers, most of them journalists and freelance writers. The way they present current affairs, in more than the mundane way of just spelling out the facts that the news agencies do, and the depth of their analysis, has broadened my outlook into how I see and perceive the things happening around the world.

I sometimes read from online columnists about various subject interests and it shows me a world that I can’t otherwise. It gives me access to information when I want them, and in the manner that I want them.

I was scouring blogspot.com when I came across many Bhutanese who had their blogs set up there. It was encouraging to see so many of them there. Some do just creative writing, some write about their lives, some comment critically on issues and current affairs.

It encouraged me to set up my own blog (only I haven’t been that regular in updating it). It was heartening to see that our people had a way to unleash their creative potential and also to voice out their opinions now. They don’t write badly at all, maybe because of the good command we have in English thanks to our education system. Some of their thoughts are really deep and it connects to you even more when you know that the other person is a Bhutanese or better in fact if you know the person in real life.

It is that sort of connection that the blogger has with the common man which the mass media lacks; the element of person is introduced in a blog. This gave birth to what we today know as citizen journalism. The public is no longer satisfied at being at the receiving end of the media system. It is now a time of citizens communicating with each other without the media system in between. This gives rise to a form of communication never seen before, and all this has been made possible due to the technological marvels of our time.

Some members of the public have realized that sometimes they are the ones at the forefront making news and rather than have their stories told by others, they resort to giving their own accounts. They even bring out stories as they happen, and if that’s not breaking news then what is?

Often when the ‘players’ in the ‘news’ themselves give out their points of view it is made realer and less fictional. The ‘audience’ connects better with this sort of reporting rather than the conventional one. Combine this with more features like audio, video and pictures, along with a textual account and you have an unbeatable combination, a wholesome experience. This form of ‘participatory journalism’ has been criticized for its lack of credibility and respect for copyright but beyond that its impact on the psyche of the common man is undeniable and cannot be ignored by the conventional media for long.

It is therefore high time media systems started incorporating contributions from local residents of their service areas, who report on topics which concern them and more so if these topics are ignored by the conventional media.