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Activism See other Activism Articles Title: Media struggle with growing 'blogosphere' More people are blogging than ever -- particularly young people -- while traditional media grapple with dwindling interest and growing criticism from this tech-savvy share of the public, experts told United Press International. "What blogging has created is a million eyes watching over the shoulders of journalists," Matthew Felling, media director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, told UPI. He cited the recent scourging of CBS Nightly News anchor Dan Rather, after bloggers showed a document Rather used to question President Bush's military service was a forgery. "Blogs are the ultimate reason we are seeing journalism clean house nowadays," Felling said. "If some questionable news-gathering behavior had grown to be tolerated, the blogosphere has put an end to that." Blogs -- short for Web logs -- essentially are online journals where hosts can post personal reactions, public opinions, news of the day, what they ate for dinner, or anything else they like. The number of Americans blogging has increased 2 percent in just the past three months, the Pew Internet and American Life Project indicated on its Web site. By early January of this year, 7 percent of U.S. adults polled by Pew said they had blogged and 25 percent said they had read blogs. By the end of March -- according to two surveys of American adults conducted between Jan. 13 and March 21 that involved 2,871 Internet users -- 9 percent said they had blogged and 27 percent -- about the same amount within the margin of error -- said they had read blogs. In other words, according to the Pew site, as of late March, 6 percent of the entire U.S. population has blogged -- or 11 million people -- and 32 million adults, or 16 percent, read blogs. It is mostly younger people that both read and write blogs, however, the Pew survey found. Among people online ages 18-29, about 19 percent have created blogs, whereas only 5 percent of those 50 and older have done so. Also, 36 percent of online adults ages 18-29 have read blogs, compared to 18 percent of the 50-and-older set who use the Internet. The data suggest more people are obtaining their news without visiting sites and other media outlets supported by advertising. What is the upshot of this youthful proclivity for blogs? Expect to see an "outbreak of apathy among media consumers in the years ahead," media consultant and blogger Kim Garretson said in one of his recent blogs, which he forwarded to UPI. Blogging, Garretson said, is just one facet of how today's tech-savvy youth pluck bits of information from various media sources and trade it via text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, mobile phones, blogs and other communal technology. "Often times it's media content that's been clipped from an environment where advertisers and circulation departments try to extract some revenue from the core audience," he told UPI in a telephone interview. "Once it's clipped out of that environment ... the media company is a far distance away from ever seeing any revenue out of this new audience." The bottom line, Garretson added, is the media must find a way to place advertising in front of this new genre of consumers. "It's not just newspaper sites inviting readers to participate or reporters starting their own blogs," he said. "Frankly what it is -- I don't know." Some blogs with cult followings, such as Ana Marie Cox's Wonkette, do attract paid advertising, however, including ads from big names such as jeans company Levi's. So, although the blogosphere is revered as a "populist utopia," it too has its idols -- and with that, an effective advertising venue, Felling said. "Oddly enough in the blogosphere, which is romanticized as this populist utopia, it too has created an elite class of opinion mongers," he said, adding that many blogs no doubt will remain vehicles for ordinary people to vent about what they see in the news. "A blog by definition is created by someone who is an outsider," Felling said, "and as long as media bias is a problem defined as 'things I disagree with,' people will be writing down 'things I do agree with.'" -- Dar Haddix is UPI's Deputy Business Editor. E-mail: sciencemail@upi.com
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More like data mining software to release to DHS at a later date...as Chertoff recently suggested...
They're capturing the keystrokes to this thread right now.
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