Evening News Essay

News is information or a presentation about current events and is reported by a variety of means such as newspapers, periodicals, radio, television and websites on the Internet. The reporting of news falls into the field of journalism, which are typically written or broadcast in news style. Most news is investigated and presented by journalists and can be distributed to various sites via news agencies. On the other hand, according to a web encyclopedia, â€Å"Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.†(par. 1). A blog is a mixture of a person’s experiences in life and what is happening on the Web. It is like a kind of a personal diary-cum-guide site. There are unique types of people, thus, there are as many unique types of blogs as well. In another case, a blog is also a web site that contains dated entries in reverse chronological order (most recent first) about a particular topic. Functioning as an online newsletter, blogs can be written by one person or a group of contributors. Entries contain commentary and links to other Web sites, and images as well as a search facility is also included. Most blogs also invite feedback and comments from visitors and Internet newsgroup discussions, which tend to be more question-and-answer oriented. People have already maintained blogs before but it only gained momentum in 1999 when automated published systems were introduced. Nowadays, thousands of people use web site blog hosting services to simplify and accelerate the publishing process. The template-based software makes it easy to create an online blog and continuously allows you to add entries. Similarly like news, a blog   is a form of media. However, news is considered a traditional media while blog is connoted as internet type of media. It is a platform to communicate what anyone may wish to let anyone know within reach of an internet connection. In traditional media, you are first defined by your medium. There is some constraint on how the contents are delivered physically or digitally which is determined by your medium. According to Maverick blog article, â€Å"There is a cost versus time versus interest versus access series of constraints that determines who your audience is, how you reach them and what they expect of you. Over time, those constraints have evolved our media into very defined roles†(par. 3). Blogs are different. There is no cost constraint. It costs nothing to create a blog. There are time constraints, but much less than traditional media. Bloggers are not pressured   to publish or create an article on a schedule. Blogging is basically personal and this is where the paths of blogging and traditional media diverge. Traditional media is business, thus it has become exclusively corporate while blogging remains almost exclusively personal. However, some bloggers have started to make money from their blogs but what they put in their blogs is all up to them which gives them satisfaction.   Members of traditional media are employees. They get hired for a specific job and they have to do that job. They get hired by a corporation that is most likely public, which means that their employers are concerned in getting their stock price up above all else. Thus, they write news and articles that is dictated by subjects perceived to make more money.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In comparison to mainstream media, blog gives anyone the freedom to write about anything. They can write opinion. They can report facts. They can ask questions. They can write any topics they want. Individual Web surfers post their own eclectic and varied thoughts. Still, others such as known political parties, religious and professional groups, businesses, and media organizations have created their own blog sites too. A report by Snow states that, â€Å"audience for blogs in general is more than 3.5 million strong, and growing. One group that surveys political blogs believes between 20,000 and 25,000 people are regularly talking about political topics on Weblogs. These days people from every corner of the country are finding each other on screen. The impact of all this dialogue is hard to gauge, but it is clearly shaping politics and media coverage†(par. 16-18). Wright also presented that â€Å"Blogging grew from the ground up as a grassroots effort. What started as a few people conversing about common interests via real-time Internet postings has become a continuous conversation among millions of   bloggers and readers. With millions of bloggers expressing their thoughts, experiences, and information they’ve learned in their fields of interest, this medium has become a worldwide forum†(3). Another interesting development of blog in comparison to traditional media is that even news agencies have created their own section termed newsblogs. Auty argues that â€Å"newsblogs supplement and work alongside traditional news media by filtering and reporting news. She praises the growth of personal diaries and eyewitness accounts (such as those that sprung up after 9/ 11) but overall sees blogs as being a new way of distributing and collecting the news rather than a new source of news itself†(341). The rapid pace of technology is changing the nature of blogs as well. The popularity of digital audio players such as the iPod has spurred the growth of blogs with audio content. People can download a wide range of audio files like music and listen to them at their convenience using a PC or a portable media player. The rapid adoption in the use of cell phones with built-in digital cameras and wireless Internet connections is also changing the face and pace of blogging. Bloggers armed with these tools can snap a picture, writes a short caption and then post it on a â€Å"moblog† or mobile log, regardless of time and place.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thus, with these conveniences brought about by blogging and the personal satisfaction they give on people, it is not surprising that future generations will no longer subscribe to traditional media. As Wright argues, â€Å"blogs have the power to create businesses, change the course of political history, and transform the way the mainstream or traditional media looks at itself.†(2). BIBLIOGRAPHY Auty, Caroline(Editor). Politics and Government in the Age of the Internet. Bradford, , UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2005. p 341. Blogging Vs. Traditional Media. Blog Maverick Website. May 13, 2006. 27 Oct. 2006 Snow, Kate. The Power of the Blog. ABC News website. Sept. 26, 2004. 27 Oct. 2006 Webopedia. The No. 1 Online Encyclopedia dedicated to Computer Technology. 26 Oct. 2006 Wright, Jeremy. Blog Marketing. Blacklick, OH, USA: McGraw-Hill Companies, The, 2005. p 2-3.