Applied Experience
I used these materials as a guest speaker for two classes at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, Alaska.
The first class was about media literacy and digital storytelling. The students had reviewed issues blogs (see Sources for More Information/Issues Blogs) prior to class and were prepared to discuss them.
Since the class was about digital storytelling and consisted of assignments using computers, I prepared the materials to discuss the history, metamorphosis, and evolution of blogs in detail. However, after a brief period of questioning the class I found that the students not only did not know what blogs were, but many only used computers when required for class work.
Due to this discovery, I backtracked the lesson to include a dissection of what defines a blog. Throughout the lecture I encouraged questions to assure I did not use too many insider terms without explaining them and also to learn what it is non-computer users understand and question related to blogging. It was based upon this interaction that I created the ”What is the difference between a blog and a personal web site?” section.
We worked their evaluations of political issues blogs into the discussion after defining types of blogs. Each student who had completed the assignment spoke about the two blogs chosen, the topic covered, differences in coverage, and their impressions of both. One student complained that these blogs were simply a place to argue and held little insight or new information. Students seemed agitated about the highly biased coverage and critical of stereotypical views being expressed in almost all of the listed blogs.
At this point I asked students to tell us what the bloggers’ about sections or pages had said when they reviewed the blog. These blurbs or pages typically share the blogger’s background, interests, and leanings. While students had noted that the blogs were highly biased, the about sections typically announced this as intentional and bloggers made no pretenses about being objective.
An interesting twist at the time of this class was the recent destruction in New Orleans due to hurricane Katrina. As I had reviewed the issues blogs the week prior to class, I had a difficult time determining whether bloggers were liberal or conservative. In the wake of the hurricane they were all berating the government for inaction and connecting each other to ways of offering assistance. It was only through the about information that I was able to determine political leanings.
I asked the students why they were agitated by the representation of strong opinions in the blogs, which led to a discussion about the unbiased nature of the press. The difference between a blog, especially one that reports news rather than simply discussing existing news articles, and the press in reference to bias lies largely in the pretense of unbiased reporting. While professional journalism strives to report objectively, is that possible?
After some discussion, I brought out the essay The Rise and Fall of Professional Journalism from the book Into The Buzzsaw. This essay claims that professional journalism, and the idea of an unbiased press, only arose after publishers began accepting advertising and lost the trust of readers. The essay also ties in popular criticism of the capitalist press in the early 1900s and claims these forces led to the establishment of schools of journalism as a way to appease readers with unbiased reporting.
From discussions on bias and media roles, we also touched on grassroots reporting. Blogs, as a personal publishing tool, offer anyone with access to the internet the ability to tell their story. Students who had been critical of blogs at the start of the class began to speak up about the potential offered by blogs.
The public nature of blogging about personal lives also came up. One student, who had been aggressively negative about blogs from the beginning, admitted that an ex-boyfriend had written about her in his blog. She felt trapped because she knew complaining about it or asking to be removed would only lead to further posts about her.
While blogs are public for the most part, I pointed out that blogs face the same challenges as standard websites when trying to build readership. With so many general web sites and so many blogs available, the blogger needs to actively attract readership. Blogs are not usually advertised as professional web sites are, but more often use blog rolls and networking to gain readership. A result of this process is a form of privacy, wherein posts can be “friends only.” Rather than allowing posts to be read by or commented on by everyone, entries can be made available to a limited audience.
Initially a key to blogs was the public nature of comments. However, in the wake of recent attempts to crash servers through excessive and unrelated comments on blogs (known as comment spam) many bloggers are limiting access to commenting. While different from “friends only” posting, the combination of such restrictions shows a change in the blogosphere. As blogging becomes more accepted and used by the general public it also faces problems associated with being in the public eye � from bloggers losing their jobs for posts read by coworkers and bosses to inundation with spam.
In the second class, which consisted of future teachers, I was more prepared to address the basics of blogging. I did not expect them to be as computer literate as I had expected the digital storytelling class to be. However, I was once again proven incorrect.
This class was set up with laptops for use during the class, and most of the students already knew what blogs were. However, none of the students blogged, and most had not read blogs. After determining their existing knowledge of blogs, I addressed the relevant overview content.
Rather than reading political issues blogs prior to class, these students were given an assignment during class to find and review a blog related to their academic area. Prior to class I had developed a web page with links to education blogs and blog search engines to give them a place to start. During the search students found that keywords in blog searches can be tricky. Attempts to find blogs related to drama education led to posts on teenage angst titled “drama, drama, drama�”
Again this class began with most students expressing negative opinions about blogging. When I asked students how blogs could be applied in the classroom they did not feel blogs were useful as teaching instruments. After discussing the basics of blogging and spending some time reviewing education-related blogs the class as a whole was more positive about blogging in general as well as in the classroom.
We completed the class with the creation of a blog. One class representative started an account with Blogger and entered the first post. Other students navigated to the new blog and commented on the post. One student who had been highly negative about blogs in the beginning of the class was now extremely proud of being able to create a blog. She encouraged her classmates to use the blog to keep in touch outside of classtime.