What is a blog? Good question… After having a flick through the 2 readings set by Seth, I feel like I most definitely have a strong grasp on the question of “what is a blog?” Blogging is a form of media that basically was incepted when the internet first started in 1990. A new post on a blog are called entries or posts, and with these posts, webblogs are a tool to better understand a topic through shorter, rather than longer posts. Essentially, a blog is a ‘web based publication’ (Miles, Adrian 2006) and thus the title of Networked Media comes about… it’s media through a network. Historically, a blog is thought to have started, as mentioned before, when the internet came about. In December 1997, Jorn Barger is said to have started the first blog (Walker Rettberg, Jill 2008) – a website in which he would recommend different websites to visit for other users. Obviously, since the start of blogging, a lot has changed and now we are living in a world where there is a blog for everything! In order to further your knowledge of something  you are doing, for example blogging, you must first get a better understanding of how this came about.

As we find that a lot of traditional media (e.g. print, television, radio) is generally being used less and less, or in some cases even being totally phased out, new media (e.g. blogging, online media) is definitely overpowering the typically ‘engrained’ or traditional media. Blogs are fast becoming a prominent way for people to communicate with a wider audience, it’s there to help convey a point of view or simply just get stuff off the author’s chest. Walker Rettberg explores the idea that a blog has mainly one defining feature, and that is that they are “frequently updated and that the content does not stay the same” (Walker Rettberg, Jill 2008). This is arguably the one thing that I love about blogging, while there is a similarity throughout all entries and there is a consistency in what is posted, it is ever-changing and constantly being updated – keeping the audience involved and captivated with every post.

Walker Rettberg, Jill “Blogging” Digital Media and Society Series (2008)

Miles, Adrian “Blogs in Media Education: A Beginning.” Australian Screen Ed.41 (2006): 66-9