Get Your Blog On And Participate
After reading ‘Blogs in Media Education’ by Adrian Miles, I’ve come to a better understanding of the importance of blogging. It’s not just a means of expressing one’s views, passions and ideas i.e. communicating in the traditional sense, but a fundamental part of a network of media, which represents the contemporary communication environment.
One idea from the reading that struck me as particularly important is that blogging enables us – consumers – to not only learn from others, but to play an active role in the production of information. Thus, it facilitates a culture of participation that subverts the conventional idea that media is produced by certain actors and passively absorbed by consumers. Furthermore, blogging or participating in an online network of media, allows us to have a say in the meaning of things, thus we are not limited simply to the information produced by media powerhouses.
Now that my critical response to the reading is out of the way, let me show you what people are actually blogging about. What kinds of information are people like you and I producing? The answer is, anything and everything! You name it, from Politics to baking it’s being produced.
I’ve spent the last couple of days searching for blogs to add to my blogroll, and I’ve come across some that are more like works of art! Check out the 2013 winners of the Australian Writers’ Centre Best Australian Blog for some inspiration. Applications for the 2014 competition are already closed, but if you really get into it you could be in the running for 2015!