Businessweek articleBig Brother is Reading You discusses how we, the bloggers, are being viewed and re-viewed by not just our fellow bloggers, but by school officials, bosses, etc. But the article's tone emphasizes the negatives of blogging and makes it look like we're all doing this just to trash our bosses--and will all get fired for it. Ubiquitous generalizations like "getting fired for blog entries is so common now..." are annoying. It would be nice to see phrases like this backed up with some solid figures on the numbers. Or is this just a Silicon Valley phenomenon?
The piece notes that Dooce's traffic's doubled, but also neglects to mention that Dooce is now known for being a parenting authority more than she is known for being "dooced."
There is also little mention how blogs are, for many, becoming an integral part of their professional identities. A little better research on the part of Businessweek on this phenomenon, rather then perpetuating the old saws about anonymity and trashing the boss, would be greatly appreciated.
citizen journalism, media, Blogging, Blog, Blogs, Weblogs
2 comments:
I happened to mention in a post recently that at my tech company in Silicon Valley I still can't get any traction around the idea of project wikis. Why would a bleeding edge technology company be so backward? And there's a corporate blog on the public site, but it's dryer than a piece of week old ryecrisp. This from a company that needs everyone to need huge broadband pipeage and get onboard with the IP express "voice, video and data" *sigh*
you know, Dawn, I'm surprised, yet not surprised to hear what you're saying. With the blog, so many people want to control the message so badly that they squeeze the life out of each and every entry. Then, there's no readers and they wonder why! If there is no personality, there's nothing for people to interact with. Folks look at it and go "that's nice," and move on.
That it's a tech company that's so controlling---well, if I think about it, I'm not surprised. Some tech folks are more paranoid because they know the technology...odd as that may sound.
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