Blogging is increasingly becoming a commonplace Internet activity, much like sending e-mail or shopping online. Few could have predicted that this oddly named activity would have grown seemingly overnight into a cultural phenomenon.
Greg Downey, an associate professor of journalism wrote an article on blogs for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Journalism and Mass Communication which defines blogs as, ""...representing ‘social networking' technologies, where authors comment on each other's postings and link to each other's sites, creating dense networks of affiliation around various technological, political, and social topics.""
However, how blogs are being used and the characteristics of those who use them may soon need to be redefined. They are no longer just for angst-filled teens or opinionated adults. Major corporations have begun to see the value of blogging and many have integrated this activity into their company structure.
According to an Oct. 18 article, Fortune reports that more than three dozen Fortune 500 companies blog, including tech giants Sun Microsystems, IBM and Microsoft, as well as Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Verizon.
According to Fortune, the tide is turning from the structured, formal communication of business in the past decade to an ""open, honest and authentic"" dialogue with customers and employees.
""Some companies now have blogs to appear hip,"" said Barry Orton, a professor of telecommunications at UW-Madison. He noted that businesses also use blogs for communication between employees within a company, as well as for marketing and public relations.
Orton, who began his involvement with blogging by editing the blog of former Madison mayor Paul Soglin, now writes his own commentary on Soglin's blog at www.waxingamerica.com.
Orton has noticed how the implementation of the Internet has affected the inner workings of society and business in the past few years and continues to do so increasingly as technology changes.
""The Internet has a huge impact on people's lives and how the economy works,"" Orton said.
He also noted that blogs haven't really affected how businesses essentially operate yet.
""The biggest impact of blogging is work avoidance,"" Orton said, referencing the lower productivity that many companies experience with the distracting technology of the Internet.
Yet, to many, blogging is not just a fad to be capitalized on or something to do in lieu of a crossword puzzle. According to Downey, blogs have become a ""new form of watchdog reporting, challenging the mainstream of both journalistic writing and political communication."" He cites instances of when bloggers have claimed partial responsibility for the resignation of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott in 2002 and the resignation of Dan Rather from the CBS Evening News anchor chair in 2005.
Outside the political and corporate realms, the number of personal bloggers has also increased dramatically. Orton credits this to the simplicity and low-cost of the blog, which makes it easier for people to speak their minds.
According to Orton, society is ""going toward many more individual providers of information and fewer centralized sources of information,"" such as magazines and newspapers, the staple of U.S. news in the past century.
Although the Internet has revolutionized U.S.and world society, blogs are still in their infancy. Downey said that currently only 39 percent of Internet users read blogs and a quarter of the U.S. population still does not use the Internet.
But with all of the changes that have taken place with the Internet in the past decade, and with major corporations now on the bandwagon, one can only wonder where blogs will go.
