Online Journalism 1 - Weblogs and Journalism

Scott Rosenberg on 'the first blogger'

Back in the first session, I asked you to find out who the first blogger was. Lots of you have posted some interesting responses to this - Sophie has a good historical rundown plus pics of some of the early bloggers, Sean has a good timeline plus links, Michael links out to a good CNet piece on this subject, Paul argues that trying to find out who the first blogger was is kind of like blogging itself and Fabienne makes the point that a lot of you made - that although Jorn Barger may have coined the term 'weblog', that doesn't really make him the first blogger.

This whole question was a big noise in the blogosphere last year, around the (supposed) tenth anniversary of blogging. The Wall Street Journal wrote an intended celebration of blogging's tenth birthday but, because they named Barger as the first blogger, they caught a lot of flak from other bloggers keen to correct this claim (along with other mistakes). 

Scott Rosenberg, an author/journalist who specialises in technology (he used to work on the online magazine Salon) wrote an excellent round-up/response to this. Have a look and try the links if you want to see what various bloggers wrote in response to the WSJ. Rosenberg followed up with a really good piece about it all on The Guardian's Comment is Free in which he tries to sum up the main lessons of the row.

First up, he points out that trying to name 'Barger or anyone else as first blogger is a futile exercise'. You may be pleased that I set you off in the first session on a 'futile exercise'. But the idea was to bring out Rosenberg's key point:

"Like so many online innovations, blogging didn't spring fullgrown from some visionary's fertile forehead. It evolved as a bundle of online publishing practices; and as software developers created tools to make those practices easier, the form and tools advanced together."

In other words, blogging emerged as a result of actions on the part of lots of different people and institutions. It's still developing as the result of the new ways people are using blogs. Rosenberg sees the blog response to the WSJ story as an example of that. Sure, there was a lot of posturing in the row but at the end, if you look at the ideas bloggers came up with in response to the WSJ's misguided assertions, you end up with a better picture of how blogging developed.

Rosenberg goes on to say that:

Today, the blog - with its links, reader comments and archive page for each post - feels obvious and intuitive. It's the default format for a website.

It's an interesting point - blogs, with their time sensitivity/comments/privileging of the latest content/links etc have now become the way we expect certain sorts of websites to be - especially the websites produced by people in the journalism business.

(BTW The pic's from Scott Rosenberg's personal website)

Student Journalists and blogs

Neil McIntosh is responsible for a lot of the most interesting Web 2.0 projects at The Guardian. He's visited the course before and talked about how important it was for student journalists to blog. He said that he wouldn't interview someone for a job if they weren't blogging.

He's picked up this idea again on his blog - and talked about why he thinks blogging is so important. Have a look at his post and also look at this discussion thread on the same subject on Paul Bradshaw's Online Journalism blog. (Incidentally, Paul teaches OJ and other things at Birmingham City University and his blog is fantastic and well worth a read - it covers a lot of the territory we're going to be covering on the course in the next two years).

So - what do you think? Are all these thirtysomething blokes telling you to blog right? Why do you think they see it as a key skill for would be journalists these days? Write a post about this on your classroom blogs - remember to link to any source material you discuss.

Another place to go for some perspective on this is Dave Lee's blog. He's a journalism student at the University of Lincoln, who's got work and built a profile via his blog - he's now the Press Gazette's official Student Journalist Blogger.

Who's Online in 2008?

An awful lot of research has been done over the last ten years or so into the changing nature and needs of the online population. I want you to try to find some of it, especially some recent surveys of net users.

Then write a short blog post summarising what you've found, with links to the research you've located. Some questions to focus on:

• How has the net population changed over the last ten years?
• What do people want to do online?
• What are the most popular activities?

The Pew Internet And American Life Project is a good place to go to get a sense of who's using the net in the States and what they do when they're online. In some respects, America is still leading the way online, so the Pew Internet research can help you anticipate future developments over here. But try to find some UK stats.

The history of blogging

Rebecca Blood, a well-respected long established blogger, wrote a history of the early days of blogging for a book she wrote on the subject. (Incidentally, she's written lots of interesting articles on blogs and journalism and interviewed lots of well-known bloggers).

It's good, but it only goes up to 2000. Can you fill in the last eight years? Perhaps we could try to put together a timeline of some of the key events/moments in blogging history. Here's one question I'd like you to focus on - who was the first blogger?

Today's session

I'm not quite sure how much we'll be able to fit into today's session. It is the first of the unit and it is a Friday afternoon. We'll see how we do, I guess

First, I'm going to do an introduction to the unit and we'll look at some of the work people did last year. After that, we're going to research weblog history. This is a chance for me to see what you remember from last term's Intro unit, re blogging and research online. After that we're going to look at who's online these days and how the net population has changed over the last ten to twelve years.

If there's time, we're also going to look at why people in the news business think student journalists should be blogging, if they want to be taken seriously.

Welcome to the unit

And welcome to yet another unit blog. During class, I'll be posting exercises here, along with links I want you to look at. Once you've set up your unit blogs, I'll put links up here. I'm also going to put up some lists of generally useful links - if I get time. I'll also try to point to interesting things online that are relevant to the unit.

You may find this useful. You may not. Let me know in the comments - or in class (obviously).