The English noun of blog is "Blog or Weblog" (when referring to people, it corresponds to "Blogger"). It is another typical new thing on the Internet. You can't find it even if you check the latest English dictionary. The origin of the word The abbreviation of "Web Log" refers to a special way of publishing and publishing articles online, advocating the exchange and sharing of ideas.
"Internet Translator" (/ dictionary/blog/)’s explanation is: “A publishing method that expresses personal thoughts and network links, with the content arranged in chronological order and constantly updated. "
Blogging is a new thing. There are 100 different definitions in the eyes of 100 people, but the basic connotation is the same.
Sun Jianhua defined it this way: "A relatively complete blog The concept generally includes three aspects: first, the content is mainly personalized expression; second, it is in the form of a diary and frequently updated; third, it makes full use of links to expand the article content, knowledge scope and connections with other blogs. ”
“In fact, it is difficult to define a blog. The blog itself is in a process of growth. Usually it is just a personal website operated by an individual using very convenient free maintenance software. The website contains many links to other websites and links to reports from other websites. Of course, these websites and reports are full of personality, wit and humor, and sometimes they are inevitably boring. , rogue's brief comments are an indispensable part of the blog. ”①
1.2 Visual expression about blogs
“We call this group of Magellans in the information age Bloggers. Their emergence has enabled us to accumulate knowledge and cultural orientation for the first time in the Internet world. It enables human beings to transition from extensive digital existence to personalized and precise directory existence. "Bloggers" are not PhDs, but they are knowledge managers in the information age. Their profound knowledge is not reflected in the closed connotation, but in the denotation of their dedication. Just like Magellan's logbook, bloggers integrate work, life and study. Through blog logs (Blog or Weblog), they record and publish the essence of daily thoughts in a timely manner, extracting and connecting the world's most valuable, most relevant, and Most interesting information and resources. Enable more knowledge workers to absorb these most vivid ideas at zero distance and without barriers. "
——"Blog Manifesto" Fang Xingdong
"Wall Street Journal" reporter Peggy Noonan explained this: Blogs operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A speech website. This kind of website provides unrestrained speech in a frank, wild, unreserved, thoughtful and strange way.
Dan Gilmer, the most famous IT blog columnist in Silicon Valley, once made a very important point. A shocking new concept: Blog represents "News Media 3.0". 1.0 refers to traditional media or old media, 2.0 is what people usually call new media (new media) or cross-media, and 3.0 It is the personal media with blogging as the trend (we media) or called self-media.
David Weinberg is a famous Internet thinker. He believes that blogs are personal voices in the new public. *Persistent record of space.
1.3 The "evolution" of blogs
1.3.1 Blogs in the United States
The idea of ??developing blogs on the Internet began in 1998. , but it really started to become popular in 2000. In just a few years, blogging has gradually entered the mainstream from the fringes.
On January 18, 1998, American Matt Draghi released. A piece of news that shocked the world: the sex scandal between President Clinton and White House Assistant Lewinsky. The number of visits to Drudge's website suddenly increased from 900 to 12,300. For Matt Drudge, the world's oldest news organization. One of the agencies, Agence France-Presse, listed him as one of the top ten most driving and influential people in the 20th century, along with CNN founder Ted Turner, television inventor John Bayer, and father of wireless communications Marco Polo Ni and other celebrities side by side. And all his weapons are just his own personal blog website "Drudgereport".
The most authentic and vivid description of the "9/11 Incident" is not in the "New York Times", but in the blogs of those survivors; the most profound reflections and discussions on the matter are not from anywhere. In the hands of a famous reporter, but in many blogs; in 2002, some remarks made by Lott, the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, were ignored by almost all major news media, but they were noticed, pursued and spread by bloggers, making He suddenly became the target of attention from journalists across the United States, and even eventually led to his resignation, becoming another glorious record of blogging in the news media.
During the Iraq War, the most mysterious person on the Internet was blogger Salim Parks. Starting in September 2002, he had been writing and posting articles about the situation in Baghdad. It was rumored that he The workplace is in Baghdad.
Thousands of people log on to the Internet every day to search for his blog, which chronicles life in war-torn and besieged Baghdad, from the price of tomatoes to the power of bombs. The reports he sent to the world from Baghdad were more vivid and powerful than those of CNN and Peninsula, attracting citations from major media outlets. He has not been heard from since he posted his last diary entry at the end of March this year. Major media outlets published special articles, and people speculated that he had died or was unable to access the Internet. The title of one report was the most appropriate: "Blogs fell silent, and the world held its breath." Another war blogger, Christopher Abreton, reported that he had died in Turkey. He loaded his back-to-iraq.com website into a car to cover the Iraq War.
After a quick search on the Internet, we can find that almost every English-language mainstream media in Europe and the United States is pursuing blogs.
In May 2002, "Newsweek" published a feature with a sensational headline: "Will Blogs Kill Traditional Media?" ”, after experiencing the free fall of the Internet, there are still many people who cannot change their habit of telling fortunes for traditional media. CNN also pays close attention to blogs. On May 9, 2002, CNN's report was titled "Blogs take online diaries to a higher level." On May 14, another CNN special report was titled "Blog Observation: Dialogue with Bloggers." Murdoch's Fox News, which is as famous as CNN, reported on April 16 with "BIG TIME." MSNBC, co-organized by the National Broadcasting Corporation and Microsoft, published a special article on April 15, 2002, "Blogs tend to be commercialized." Soon, MSNBC itself became the protagonist of blog news. "Writer's News" reported on June 21, 2002, titled "MSNBC Releases Daily Blog Column." At the same time, the British Guardian launched a unique ranking of the top ten blogs in the UK. The 2002 issue 5 of Business 2.0 magazine organized a discussion: "Is blogging the next killer application of the Internet?"
Newsweek in February 2002 said: "Today, all The number of bloggers who consciously practice it in the world has reached 500,000 to 1 million, and a new blogger joins every 40 seconds. "
In September, Fortune magazine held its annual " "Coolest Company" selection, the first place is Pyra Company, the article begins: "Nothing is more lethal than the rapidly emerging 'blog' - an online diary that is updated in real time."
At the same time, government departments have not fallen behind. The information director of the Utah government in the United States requires 2,000 IT staff in the state government and 18,000 other government employees to use blogs as a tool for internal communication, communication and knowledge management within the government.
The most significant event related to "blog" occurred at 7:41 pm Eastern Time on February 15, 2003. Dan Gillmor, the most famous IT columnist in Silicon Valley and one of the most famous IT bloggers On his personal blog website, he first announced a surprising news: Google, the world's largest search engine company, acquired Pyra Labs, the parent company of Blogger, the world's largest blog hosting service website. milestone.
1.3.2 Blogs in China
In China, on November 20, 2001, Mr. Dan Gillmor, a professor of journalism and communication in the United States, was invited to participate in the "Tsinghua Sunshine Media Forum" and the topic of his speech was "The trend of world news media after 9.11", he specifically mentioned "online diary" in his speech, and showed everyone his own online diary. This made Chinese people aware of the concept of "online diary" for the first time.
In China, like all Internet revolutions, there continues to be a certain "lag". However, the "Digital Forum", which has always paid the closest attention to the development of the Internet, has begun to notice and pay great attention to it, and it is duty-bound to serve as a pioneer in promoting and advocating "blog ideas" in China. The "Blog China" website is such a product.
From the comprehensive introduction of the "blog" concept in August 2002 to the launch of "Blog China", application practice has been carried out.
In August 2003, the first domestic book introducing the development of blogs, "Blog (Blog) - The Fire Stealer in the E Era", was published.
By 2003, the Ministry of Education’s major research project “Blog Technology Research” was successfully passed.
But when talking about the rise of blogs in China, we cannot fail to talk about Muzi Mei.
Although blogging in China has made great progress since its establishment in 2002. For example, some private writers have frequently spoken out and severely criticized the "colored information" in certain channels of major portals such as Sina, Sohu, and NetEase; and Microsoft has also been criticized by some people for its role in combating piracy in China. There is something wrong with the action. These sharp words, rarely seen in traditional media, are attracting more and more attention, regardless of whether they are correct or not. The people making these comments are self-proclaimed bloggers.
"Blog China" has been continuously attacked by hackers. Some people speculate that the anti-online pornography topic launched by Blog China exposed the illegal interests of some sites and may also inspire some people to have revenge. After the attack, there were some gloating discussions on individual forums. But the irony is that Fang Xingdong's "waving the flag and shouting" is so weak compared to the "Mu Zimei" and "Bamboo Shadow Qingtong" incidents. While "Blog China" criticized "colorful information", it also caught up with it. This ride came into public view. Many people got to know "Blog China" from Mu Zimei. As a result, the number of people visiting and requesting registration has surged, and now registration applications in Blog China still require a manual review system.
Fang Xingdong himself said: "It was Muzimei who brought the concept of "blog" to the public, and Muzimei contributed a lot to the popularization of the concept of blogging. There is no doubt about this. Therefore, Muzimei's name has played an important role in the development of Chinese blogs. It must be a name that has left an important mark in history. She can’t hide from her, and you can’t stop her.” ②
Blog China visited on the 11th when it was almost impossible to log in. The number of visitors reached 110,000, almost an order of magnitude higher than usual (previously, the highest number of daily visits was 19,000). The PV is also over 370,000, which is about 4 times the usual amount. It's unknown what these numbers would be if the site were functioning properly.
(Special data provided by Baidu for Blog China)
1.3.3 Reasons behind the differences
This is how "blog" has developed in China For the public, it is really unexpected and seems reasonable.
In fact, Mu Zimei, or a similar kind of extremely personal writing, has appeared since the blog was founded. We see that most of the content on various blog websites is still characterized by "sharing of ideas". Although this type of writing is not dominant in terms of overall content, it can be said that there is not much difference between the United States and China. But the difference is clear when looking at statistics on click-through rates and most popular articles. Among the top 20 most popular articles on Blog China's website, 12 are related to "sex" and "muzibei". Although Chinese blogs and American blogs themselves have diversified characteristics, the highlighted articles reflect the huge differences in social environment and values. At the same time, we can see from the entire "value amplification" process promoted by the three major household websites. Let’s talk about the differences in news systems and values ??between China and the United States.
First of all, blogging itself is a technological means, and its impact on society is also a "double-edged sword."
While demonstrating the constructive nature of Internet culture, it is also because of its extreme "freedom" and because of human beings' own imperfections that Internet blogs amplify this imperfection.
The birth of blogs once again confirmed the works of Hegel and Marx on the "historical role of evil". In 1994, when a man named Justin Hall published a blog through the Internet When he published his "online diary" and exposed his experiences of drug abuse and sex to the world, he never thought that this notorious behavior would attract a lot of attention and potentially give birth to a new type of online communication. Way.
We know that the incidents that attract the most public attention are either sex or violence. Movies are the most violent media, and violence begins with "Shaolin Temple". Sex and violence are two news hot spots that attract the public's attention during peacetime. The masses pursue the hot topics "sex and violence" endlessly. And I think both of them exist to satisfy human voyeurism. Because humans themselves are imperfect. Internet blogging amplifies this imperfection.
So this phenomenon exists whether in Chinese society or American society. Next we will analyze why Chinese society had such a big reaction to the "Muzimei" incident.
“Americans are much more open-minded than Chinese when it comes to sex. I think many people will agree with this. There is no motivation to make breakthroughs in things where there is no pressure in society, so recently the United States has also There is a Muzimei, but it just becomes a tidbit in society. Unlike here, where the website treats it as a business opportunity for speculation and the moralists denounce it with all their strength. For a long time, there has been a distortion in the understanding of sex in Chinese society. I think this is. It cannot be denied. There is no place in this world that emphasizes the indifference between men and women and the need to "preserve natural principles and eliminate human desires" as we do here. However, according to Mr. Mao Dun, there was no such obscene work written anywhere in ancient times. We are more. The upper half opposes the lower half. This is a cultural landscape we often see. Therefore, for Mu Zimei and Zhuying Qingtong, expressing themselves also establishes a stance of rebellion against traditional social regulations."< /p>
——Guo Zhendan "The Sociological Significance of Blogs from the Perspective of Mu Zimei and Zhuying Qingtong"
In addition to the differences between Chinese and foreign sexual concepts mentioned by Mr. Guo, I think this also has something to do with the news system related to differences in news value. We see that the development of blogs in China is still very limited, and the audience of blogs is also very limited. The voice of blogs can only gain greater influence through mass media in the traditional sense. The "Muzimei" incident also relied on the "three major portals" The "website" added fuel to the flames and produced the "revitalizing effect."
Therefore, while blogs have not yet obtained the same discourse space as mass media, mass media still plays the role of "agenda setting". The "news value" and news system of traditional media affect the information release of blogs. There is essentially no difference between American blogs and Chinese blogs. American blogs also have "Muzimei", but in the United States, sex is not news. It is news only when sex and politics are combined, such as "President Clinton and White House interns" Scandal case", the mass media also followed suit. In China, the news censorship and control of traditional media is relatively strict compared with the United States. Therefore, in the initial stage of blogging, only information that is consistent with the news value of traditional media can be followed up and amplified by mainstream media. So the public began to Maybe the information about blogs learned from the mainstream media is irrelevant, or related to sex and violence, because many audiences can only see blog information through secondary communication such as mass media. Traditional media follows them Filter blog site content based on news value. That’s why we see Chinese bloggers riding the “Muzi Beauty” train into the public eye. But this situation will definitely change. When the "three major portals" websites were hyping the "Muzimei" incident, they also provided free promotion for blogs in China. When blogs enter the mainstream and gain considerable voice, this situation will definitely change.
2 What is “new” about blogs?
2.1 The difference between blogs and previous technical forms
Conceptually, the term “blog” appeared as early as in China In the past, online diaries, personal collections, discussion forums and other functions on BBS were enough for netizens to build simple online homes. Making small creations, collecting interesting information and network links to share with others has long become a part of the daily life of many Internet users.
Blogs are regarded as the fourth Internet communication tool after email, BBS and ICQ. So, what is the difference between blogging, a private publishing method, and BBS and personal homepages? Since there are many forms of blog websites and there are no certain rules, it is difficult to clearly outline the boundaries between them. What is done here is only a preliminary analysis.
2.1.1 The difference between blogs and BBSs
The following figure is a comparison between the blog publishing method and the traditional online community BBS from Wikipedia, the world's largest open encyclopedia: The producer of this figure It is a British blogger Tom Coates. The left picture represents the publishing method of the traditional BBS online community, and the right picture represents the publishing method of the blog online community. The picture reflects some revelation of the difference between the two:
First of all, from the comparison of the styles of BBS posts and blog texts, the content structure of blog texts is more complex. The structure of BBS posts is relatively simple, usually an original piece of information or comment, followed by relevant statements from other netizens. The blog text is a blog that briefly organizes and collects his own original articles or the latest information clues searched and selected on a certain topic and puts them online for sharing by netizens with related interests and needs. Blog text often exists in the form of links. "The minimum amount of prompt text plus rich link text can be said to be a more representative blog style." Blog text is a collection of original articles, link evaluations, links, and netizen follow-up articles. Compared with BBS's emotional speeches that are unobtrusive, arbitrary, and mixed in good and bad, the logs produced by blogs are more prudent, careful, and thorough. The richness of a single text, the clarity of the discussion context, and the scope for expanding the topic all exceed those posted by netizens on BBS.
Secondly, from the perspective of the relationship between posts and texts, blog texts are relatively independent, and the sorting method is also different from BBS. BBS posts are arranged in reverse time sequence, and the topics of the previous and later posts may be continuous or may change. Different posts about the same topic, often scattered in different locations. Therefore, there is such a phenomenon in BBS posts. A large number of topic changes intensify the rate of topic decay. Discussions on a single topic are fragmented and difficult to integrate. Different texts on blog websites usually focus on different themes, and the texts are relatively independent. Each text itself is the expansion and deepening of a theme. The text is placed either in reverse chronological order or in order of importance. Take China's two blog sites, "CNBlog.org" is arranged in reverse chronological order, while "Blog China" is arranged in thematic order.
Thirdly, from the perspective of purpose, BBS focuses more on speeches and comments, while blog text pursues enjoyment. The significance of online BBS is that it breaks the limitation of the monopoly of opinion expression channels by a few groups in the era of mass communication, and gives the public an equal opportunity to speak on the Internet, a public communication medium. Blog websites, on the other hand, make full use of the possibility that the Internet gives individuals to publish information and seek to share it. This contains a strong desire for information diffusion and has a certain readership, which is different from BBS.
BBS BLOG
Technical implementation is simple and simple
Moderator management requires no moderators
Management costs
Applicable situations, personal presentation of discussion issues
Community support for in-site short messages is weak
Hyperlink support is weak and highly recommended
Article quality is relatively low and high quality (real-name format)
Weak registration control and real-name system
High timeliness of news
High cost of information search
Technical difficulty of publishing articles is very low< /p>
Easy to manage non-mainstream information publishing moderators
Real-time information feedback is slow
——"A brief discussion on the difference between blogs and BBS"
2.1.2 The difference between blogs and personal homepages
Some researchers have analyzed the transformation process of netizens from speaking in forums to creating personal homepages and then becoming blogs. It can be seen from this that the differences between these three ways of publishing personal opinions can be seen. Department: "Posting posts on public forums is a common form of "broadcasting" speech online. However, due to the management restrictions of forum topics and moderators, those who want to enjoy more free expression rights and centrally store their opinions and Internet users who express content naturally turn to the solution of personal homepage. However, the difficulty of personal homepage is whether the individual has enough information resources to keep the charm factor of his homepage high for a long time. To solve this problem, some individual Internet users are gradually turning to the blog style.
Blog websites are centralized personal homepages. Personal websites are destined to only be owned by a few people due to their high-level requirements for netizens' technical level, financial conditions, and maintenance resources. However, the low threshold of blog websites makes them highly open. In 1999, a company called Pyra Labs developed software called Blogger that allowed Internet users to create web pages without having to write complex computer coding called HTML. The next year, the company launched Blogspot.com, a website that hosts blogging works. Both the software and the website are free. This brought blogging into a period of rapid popularity. "There is no 'technical content' to become a blog, no new technology; no need to register a domain name, no need to rent server space, no need for FIP knowledge and many software tools; no need for a lot of web page production knowledge." Users only need to register online for free or By registering on a paid blog website, you can have your own territory.
Blog websites also have the transparency that personal homepages lack. Since the low entry cost of blog websites has attracted countless blogs to participate, its reader appeal, content tolerance, and network click-through rate are by no means comparable to those of "independent" personal websites. If a personal website is just a one-to-many communication outlet, which mostly involves private topics, private creations and private information about personal life, career and emotions, then a blog website is a one-to-many communication outlet for countless people. In the communication community, there are both personal hobbies and public interests; there are both private opinions and group debates; the value of blogs is reflected in personalization on the one hand, and on the other hand, this personalization must be recognized by the majority of people. Therefore, the key to the success of a blog lies in whether his evaluation of the content is unique, whether his selection is reasonable, whether his recommendations are appropriate, and how persuasive and attractive he is. Blogs not only reflect oneself, but also consider the needs of the market.
3 The Impact of Blogs
To analyze what kind of impact blogs have, whether it is just a new round of conceptual hype or a revolutionary information technology innovation, we must go back to the entire Find answers in the development of network technology. It should be said that the emergence of blogs is in line with the internal logic of the development of the entire network technology culture.
Blogs have two main functions: First, from the perspective of media communication, it represents a new way of free expression of personal online publishing, posing a challenge to the operating model of the traditional media industry. The second is from the perspective of knowledge management. It represents a new way of filtering and accumulating personal knowledge and in-depth communication on the Internet, which has brought new changes to organizational communication and social communication.
3.1 A new way of personal network publishing
3.1.1 Individuals and the public
Compared with BBS and personal homepages, the biggest feature of blogs is that they combine personal homepages The individual characteristics are combined with the sharing and openness characteristics of BBS. First of all, web logs are a kind of personal expression and at the same time they are not private. If BBS emphasizes publicity too much, and personal homepages lack publicity, then "blog" technology is a combination of the two. In the blog kingdom, what is truly intriguing may be this: the most personal content has the most public form.
The process of transforming an individual into a public is a process of socialization, which first requires a space for realization. This space is called the "public domain" by Habermas.
According to Habermas's theory, the public sphere refers to a public space between the state and society. Citizens are assumed to be able to speak freely in this space without interference from the state. In layman's terms, it refers to "in addition to political power, as a basic condition for democratic politics, the space for citizens to freely discuss public affairs and participate in politics." In this free space free from government intrusion, Habermas emphasized the public communication between citizens with reading as the intermediary and communication as the center. In an ideal democracy, the state, subject to legal constraints, can only assume the role of guarantor in the field of public affairs. It is the authority to protect freedom and cannot interfere. In Habermas's view, the basis of the bourgeois public realm is the separation of state and society, which comes from the separation of social reproduction and political power. In the feudal era, the state was society and society was the state. It was only with the expansion of market economic relations that hierarchical rule was truly broken, civil society became possible from the bottom, and the public realm of the bourgeoisie was gradually constructed. The public sphere is composed of private individuals who gather into the public. They convey the needs of society to the state, but they themselves are part of the private sphere. With the development of the public sector, the transformation of individuals into the public has become increasingly dependent on mass media. For this reason, Habermas has repeatedly emphasized the importance of media studies in analyzing the structural transformation of the public sector. He regards media power as a new category of influence and believes that it affects the structure of the public sector. , and dominated the public domain. ③
The public domain, which is influenced and controlled by media forces, especially mass media, not only brings together countless individuals, but also plays a role in organizing society. Habermas said: “Popularity is a ruler that the government uses to measure the degree of control over the non-public opinion of the people and how much the leadership must also strive for to convert it into popular fairness. Popularity. Sexuality is not equal to publicity; but without publicity, publicity cannot be maintained for a long time. The emotions it reflects are a dependent variable in the temporarily created public domain, although it is by no means exclusively. Depends on it.”④In fact, the so-called “popularity” of mass media only describes a point-to-face communication method, and it cannot also describe the degree of fairness of this communication method. Because when the state sees the important role of the public sector in organizing society, it also attempts to control society through the manipulation of mass media. This is what Habermas means by state socialization. Mass media presupposes its own audience group, and at the same time it also presupposes a party that passively receives information, forming a one-way transmission relationship between mass media release and audience acceptance. In the second half of "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sector", Habermas focuses on analyzing the transformation of the bourgeois public sector. Beginning in the late 19th century, the wealth imbalance caused by monopoly capitalism led to unequal control of the public sector. Countries participating in the distribution of economic benefits have gradually taken control of the media that originally served the public. The democratic functions of the media have continued to decline. Many free public service agencies have become private and began to charge fees. "Social dialogue has been managed." . As a result, media groups with political functions are controlled by ideology, the public and private spheres tend to merge, and the distinction between public and private is shifted to the integration of national society. In highly developed industrialized societies, the structural framework of the public sector has collapsed due to the dual processes of state intervention in society and society's reliance on state power. According to Habermas, "success is a failure, failure is a failure" gave birth to capitalism in the bourgeois public sphere, and then destroyed the bourgeois public sphere with his own hands.
In mass media such as newspapers, radio, and television, audience participation itself is still strongly controlled. All mass media are performing their own "gatekeeper" functions, screening the topics and procedures for open debate through agenda setting, and selecting guests and live audiences suitable for the agenda. But even if you walk into the studio and have the possibility of becoming a member of the public, this possibility will be ruthlessly deleted in the later editing. In this case, those who may become a public audience have no choice but to retreat into the private sphere. “The media is a corporate property... You have no way to participate in the media. Taking the media out of the background is the first step. The second step is to distinguish the public from the audience. The audience is passive; It is participatory. We need a definition of media from a public perspective." ⑤
Audience, the public and the public are three interrelated but significantly different concepts. If an individual wants to become a real public, not just an audience or a public, it depends on the extent to which his participation in society can be achieved.
Many scholars are exploring how to realize the construction of the "public sphere" through changes in the media management system. On this issue, Western liberal scholars and leftist scholars have diametrically opposed views.
The former criticizes political protectionism and advocates the marketization of media. He believes that if the media is managed by the government, it will inevitably become a slave of the government. Only marketization can maintain its freedom and independence and prevent the government from controlling the media.