“For centuries, writers have experimented with forms that evoke the imperfection of thought, the inconstancy of human affairs, and the chastening passage of time. But as blogging evolves as a literary form, it is generating a new and quintessentially postmodern idiom that’s enabling writers to express themselves in ways that have never been seen or understood before. Its truths are provisional, and its ethos collective and messy. Yet the interaction it enables between writer and reader is unprecedented, visceral, and sometimes brutal. And make no mistake: it heralds a golden era for journalism.”
That’s Andrew Sullivan. He’s been at the forefront of blogging, so his views are worth listening to, though you may not share his Conservative ideological stance. ‘The Daily Dish‘, his online playpen at The Atlantic, was one of the first political blogs on the scene (2000). Within a few years it was receiving about 300,000 unique visits per month. His outspoken and sometimes contradictory views – notably on American politics, same-sex marriage/rights, terrorism – continue to garner polarising responses, which suits his employer just fine.
“This form of instant and global self-publishing,” explains Sullivan in an essay-length critique of the blogging phenomenon, “made possible by technology widely available only for the past decade or so, allows for no retroactive editing (apart from fixing minor typos or small glitches) and removes from the act of writing any considered or lengthy review. It is the spontaneous expression of instant thought—impermanent beyond even the ephemera of daily journalism. It is accountable in immediate and unavoidable ways to readers and other bloggers, and linked via hypertext to continuously multiplying references and sources. Unlike any single piece of print journalism, its borders are extremely porous and its truth inherently transitory. The consequences of this for the act of writing are still sinking in. Read full article – Why I blog – at TheAtlantic.com.
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