Journalism Blog

Well, I just thought I’d conclude my posts with a farewell! Thanks for tuning in and listening to what I have to say…

Stay cool.

Kate

This really is a multi-media blog! What’s next: Innovations In Newspapers, is a great blog full of interesting pictures. A refreshing change from blogs that consist of large slabs of writing and very little interactive media.

A theme noted immediately in this blog, is American politics. Posts regarding the battle for the Presidency of the United States of America between Barack Obama and John McCain being frequent.

‘A free ride for political advertising’ and ‘Yes McCain is in trouble’, are effectively using a visual to send the message of the blogger as well as supporting the image with a paragraph or two of text.

As well as this, the blog contains personal accounts of Giner, making regular posts on a temporary blog while traveling on the QE2, titled the ‘QE2: The Last Crossing. The American Farewell of the longest serving ship in Cunard’s 169-year history’.

Posts by Juan Antonio Giner, the lead editor and founder of the blog, are brief but clear and concise and to the point. These qualities are ideal for me when reading blogs, the effort isn’t poured into a creative style of writing and the over use of words containing more that three syllables. Instead, it is in the form of an easy to read blog covering a range of interesting topics utilising multi-media tools.

The site also contains an impressive worldwide ‘blogroll’ linking readers to other blogs and widening the perspective of a reader.

Global Voices, a non-profit citizen media project blog worth looking at, focuses on global conversation covering the people and places the media ignore.

In an attempt to take some sort of control of the ‘blogosphere’ and with an international team of authors, regional-blog editors and translators Global Voices aims towards helping people navigate through the abundance of blogs and information they provide.

By utilising various forms of media the site offers a place where citizen’s voices can be heard and considered, calls attention to the important issues concerning citizens and advocates freedom of expression all over the world.

A recent example of a blog on Global Voices is USA: Homeland Guantanamo by Solana Larsen. The post covers a interactive on-line game produced by the human rights organisation, Breakthrough. The article explains the game and how it will effect people’s perceptions of detention centres.

This blog has articles that are relative to citizens covering a wide variety of topics ranging from politics to foreign news and special coverage. Interview with a blogger for Global Voices

In comparison to our mainstream news we experience, these blogs invite us into a more personal representation making the news easy to relate to.

Covering countries all over the world, Global Voices allows you to, by following a link, tap into your own countries blogs relating to current news and events.

Each blog opening up the forum for discussion goes toward an increasingly positive on-line citizen community building communication all over the world and supporting multi-media journalism.

A video link to Global Voices, regarding mobile journalism and web blogging: MobileActive08: Mobiles and Citizen Media

This week we look at Buzz Machine, a regular blog written by Jeff Jarvis.

The blog itself is well presented, much the same as this one, with posts running down the pages, after reading some of the blogs posted, generally an informal approach is taken to the style of writing.

However not so formal that the writer has adopted the ‘lol’ and ‘4eva’, text message slang that so many have adopted outside their mobile phones.

He maintains sounding intelligent throughout his blogs keeping obnoxious outbursts of opinion to a minimum, which is somewhat refreshing.

I think some people see blogs as a round about way to slander someone without consequence, but Javis puts his opinion forward in a generally well rounded and supported way.

Apologies for my negativity, but on an entirely personal level I find these posts a little long, that’s not to say that what the writer is posting is uninteresting, but in order to maintain my attention I find a short blog that gets straight to the point is almost always more enjoyable to read.

In once of his more recent posts ‘Once and for all’, Javis takes the time to answer a few ‘yes-buts’, as he refers to them. Stating and responding to, each issue people have in regards to his enthusiasm for the Internet and its positive effects on our media.

An interesting video link to an interview with Jarvis, on CBS news. Eye to Eye with Katie Couric (Jeff Jarvis) CBS News