Some questions about blogs?

The English noun of Blog is "Blogger Weblog", which is another typical new thing on the Internet. You can't find it in the latest English dictionary. The word comes from the abbreviation of "weblog", which refers to a special way to publish and publish articles on the Internet and advocate the exchange and sharing of ideas.

The definition of "network translator" (/dictionary/blog/) is: "a publishing method that expresses personal thoughts and network links, and the contents are arranged in chronological order and constantly updated."

Blog is a new thing. 100 people have different definitions of 100, but the basic connotation is the same.

Sun Jianhua defined it this way: "A relatively complete blog concept generally includes three aspects: first, its content is mainly personalized expression; The second is the form of diary, which is frequently updated; The third is to make full use of links to expand content, knowledge and contact with other blogs. "

"In fact, blogs are difficult to define, and blogs themselves are in the process of growth. Usually it's just a personal website operated by free maintenance software that is quite convenient for individuals to use. This website contains many links and reports from other websites. Of course, the short comments on these websites and reports are full of personality, humor, humor, and sometimes boring and rogue, which is an indispensable part of blogs. " ①

1.2 About the Visual Expression of Blog

"We call such a group of Magellans in the information age bloggers. Their appearance makes us have knowledge accumulation and cultural orientation for the first time in the internet world. Make human beings move from extensive digital existence to personalized and accurate catalogued existence. Bloggers are not doctors, but they are knowledge managers in the information age. Their profundity is not reflected in the closed connotation, but in the extension of dedication. Just like Magellan's diary, bloggers integrate work, life and study. Through blog or Weblog, they record and publish the essence of daily thoughts in time, and extract and connect the most valuable, relevant and interesting information and resources in the world. Let more knowledge workers absorb these most vivid ideas with zero distance and zero barriers. "

-Blog Manifesto Fang Xingdong

Wall Street Journal reporter Peggy? Peggy Noonan explained: Blog is a speech website that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Such websites provide freedom of speech in a frank, wild, unreserved, thoughtful and strange way.

Dan, the most famous IT blog columnist in Silicon Valley? Gilmer once put forward a very powerful new concept: Blog stands for "News Media 3.0". 1.0 refers to traditional media or old media, 2.0 refers to new media or cross-media, and 3.0 refers to personal media or self-media with blog as the trend.

David? Weinberg is a famous network thinker. He believes that blog is a lasting record of personal voice in the new public space.

1.3 "Evolution" of Blog

1.3. 1 American Blog

The idea of developing blogs on the Internet started at 1998, but it really became popular in 2000. In just a few years, blogs have gradually entered the mainstream from the edge.

1998 65438+ 10/0/8, Matt, USA? Deladde released a news that shocked the world: President Clinton had a sex scandal with White House assistant Lewinsky. The number of visits to Drade website once surged from 900 to 12300. For Matt? Deladde, one of the oldest news organizations in the world, is listed by AFP as one of the top ten figures with the greatest impetus and influence in the 20th century ",while Ted, the founder of CNN? Turner, TV inventor John? Bayer, Marconi, the father of wireless communication, and other celebrities shoulder to shoulder. And all his weapons are just his own personal blog website "Drudgereport".

Right "9? The most authentic and vivid description of "1 1 event" is not in The New York Times, but in the blog logs of those survivors; The deepest reflection and discussion on things comes not from a famous reporter, but from many blogs; In 2002, some remarks made by Lott, the majority leader of the US Senate, were almost ignored by all large news media, but were paid attention to, chased and spread by bloggers, which suddenly became the focus of American journalists, and even eventually led to his resignation and became another brilliant record of bloggers in the news media.

During the Iraq war, the most mysterious person on the Internet was the blog Salim? Since September 2002, he has been writing and publishing articles about the situation in Baghdad. It is said that his work place is in Baghdad. Every day, thousands of people log on the Internet to search for his blog, because it records the real life in Baghdad under the siege of war, from the price of tomatoes to the power of bombs. His reports from Baghdad to the world are more vivid and powerful than those from CNN and Al Jazeera, and have attracted quotations from major media. He sent his last diary at the end of March this year and has not heard from him since. Major media have published special articles, and people have speculated that he has been killed or unable to access the Internet. The title of a report is the most appropriate: "Blog is silent, the world holds its breath." Another war blog, Christopher? Abreton loaded his back-to-iraq.com website into a car to cover the Iraq war for himself.

A simple search on the Internet shows that almost every mainstream English media in Europe and America are pursuing blogs.

In May 2002, Newsweek featured a sensational headline: "Will Blog Kill Traditional Media? After the free fall of the Internet, there are still many people who can't change the habit of telling fortune to traditional media. CNN also pays attention to blogs. On May 9th, 2002, the headline of CNN report was "Blog Makes Online Diary by going up one flight of stairs". On May 14, another special report of CNN was called Blog Watch: Dialogue with Blogs. Murdoch's Fox News Channel network, which is as famous as CNN, reported "The Big Era of Blogging" on April 16. MSNBC, jointly sponsored by NBC and Microsoft, published a special article "Blog Tends to Commercialize" on April 6th, 2002 at 5438+05. Soon, MSNBC itself became the protagonist of blog news. On June 2 1 2002, the headline of the writer news was MSNBC Publishing Daily Blog Column. At the same time, the British Guardian creatively launched the top ten blogs in Britain. Business 2.0 magazine organized a discussion in the fifth issue of 2002: "Is blog the next killer application of the network? "

In February 2002, Newsweek said: "Today, the number of bloggers who consciously practice in the world has reached 500,000 to 6,543.8+00,000, and a new blogger joins every 40 seconds."

In September, Fortune magazine named Pyra as the "coolest company" of the year, and the article began: "Nothing is more lethal than the rapidly rising' blog', which is an online diary that can be updated instantly."

At the same time, government departments are not outdated. The information director of the Utah government of the United States requires 2000 IT employees of the state government and 18000 other government employees to use blogs as a tool for internal communication, exchange and knowledge management.

The most important event about "Blog" happened at 7: 4 p.m. on February 15, 2003. Dan Gill Moore, the most famous IT columnist and one of the most famous IT blogs in Silicon Valley, took the lead in posting an amazing news on his personal blog website: Google, the world's largest search engine company, acquired Pyrlab, the parent company of blogger, the world's largest blog hosting service website, which marked.

1.3.2 China Blog.

200 1, 165438 China 20061On October 20th, Mr. Dan Gill Mo, an American professor of journalism and communication, was invited to participate in the "Tsinghua Sunshine Media Forum" with the theme of "World News Media Trend after 9. 1 1". In his speech, he specifically mentioned the "online diary" and showed himself to everyone. This made China people know the concept of "online diary" for the first time.

In China, like all internet revolutions, it continues to maintain a certain "lag". However, the "Digital Forum", which has been keeping the closest attention to the development of the network, has also begun to perceive and pay close attention to it, and it is incumbent on it to act as a pioneer in the promotion and advocacy of the "blog concept" in China. "Blog China" website is such a product.

From August 2002, the concept of "Blog" was fully introduced to the opening of "Blog China", and its application practice began.

In August, 2003, Blog, the first book introducing the development of Blog in China, was published.

By 2003, the major research topic of the Ministry of Education "Blog Technology Research" passed smoothly.

But when it comes to the rise of blogs in China, we can't help but talk about Muzimei.

Although China's blog has made great progress since it was founded in 2002. For example, some folk writers frequently voice on some channels of major portals such as Sina, Sohu and Netease, and severely criticize "colored information"; Moreover, Microsoft has also been criticized by some people, saying that its action against piracy in China is problematic. These sharp words, which are rare in traditional media, are attracting more and more attention, whether correct or not. These words are said by people who call themselves bloggers. And "Blog China" has been attacked by hackers continuously. It is speculated that the topic of cracking down on online pornography initiated by blog China exposes the illegal interests of some websites, and may also inspire some people's revenge. After the attack, there were some gloating discussions in individual forums. Ironically, however, Fang Xingdong's "flag-waving" is so weak compared with the events of Muzimei and Zhu Yingqingtong. While criticizing "colored information", "Blog China" hitchhiked into the public eye. Many people know "Blog China" from Muzimei. As a result, the number of people visiting and requesting registration has soared. At present, the registration application of blog China still needs a manual review system.

Fang Xingdong himself said: "Muzimei made the concept of' blog' popular, and Muzimei contributed to the popularization of this concept. There is no doubt about it. Therefore, Muzimei's name is bound to leave an important ink mark in the history of blog development in China. She can't hide, and you can't stop it. " ②

When it was almost impossible to log in, the blog China's visit to 1 1 reached10000, almost an order of magnitude higher than usual (the highest daily visit was 19000). The PV is also above 370,000, which is about four times as much as usual. If the website is normal, how much of these data will be unknown.

(Baidu provides special data for blog China)

1.3.3 reasons behind the difference

It is really unexpected and reasonable that "blog" reaches the public in this way in China.

As a matter of fact, since the blog was founded, there have been sub-wood beauties, or similar highly personalized writing. Most of what we see on various blog sites is characterized by "sharing ideas". Although this writing is not dominant in the overall content, it can be said that there is not much difference between the United States and China. But from the statistics of click-through rate and the most popular articles, the difference is still obvious. Among the top 20 hottest articles on China website, 12 articles are related to "sex" and "Muzimei". Although both China blogs and American blogs have diversified characteristics, the outstanding articles reflect the great differences in social environment and value. At the same time, in the whole process of "value amplification" promoted by the three major websites, we have seen the differences in news system and value between China and the United States.

First of all, the blog itself as a scientific and technological means, its impact on society is also a "double-edged sword".

While demonstrating the constructiveness of network culture, online blog magnifies this imperfection because of its extreme "freedom" and human imperfection.

The birth of blog once again confirmed Hegel's and Marx's works on "the historical role of evil". 1994, a man named Justin? When Justin Hall's people published his "online diary" through the Internet to show the world their experiences of drug abuse and nude sex, he never thought that this notorious behavior might give birth to a new way of online communication while attracting a lot of attention.

We know that the events that attract the most public attention are either sex or violence. Movies are the most violent media, and violence began in Shaolin Temple. Sex and violence are two news hot spots that people pay attention to in peacetime, and the people are eager to pursue the hot spot of "sex and violence". And I think both exist to satisfy human voyeurism. Because humans are not perfect. Online blogs magnify this imperfection.

So this phenomenon exists in both China society and American society. Next, we will analyze why China society reacted so strongly to Muzimei incident.

"In terms of sex, Americans are much more open than China, and I think many people will agree with this. If there is no pressure on society, there will be no motivation to make a breakthrough. Therefore, there has been a beautiful woman in the United States recently, but it has only become a tidbit of society. Unlike here, websites are regarded as business opportunities for hype, and people who defend morality are screaming at the top of their lungs. For a long time, China society has a distorted understanding of sex, which I think is undeniable. In this world, there is no place where we emphasize that men and women are not close, and we should "preserve nature and destroy human desires". But according to Mr. Mao Dun, in ancient times, there was no place where more obscene works were written than here. The upper part is opposite to the lower part, which is the cultural landscape we often see. Therefore, for Mu Zimei and Zhu Yingqingyi, expressing themselves has established a rebellious mentality against traditional social norms. "

-Guo Zhendan sees the sociological significance of blog from Mu Zimei and Zhu Yingqing Tong.

In addition to the differences between Chinese and foreign sexual concepts mentioned by Teacher Guo, I think this is also related to the differences in news system and news value. We can see that the development of blog in China is still very limited, and the audience of blog is also very limited. Only through the traditional mass media can the voice of the blog gain greater influence, and the Muzimei incident has also produced a "resonance effect" with the help of the "three portals". Therefore, when blogs have not gained the same discourse space as mass media, mass media still plays the role of "agenda setting", and the "news value" and news system of traditional media affect the information release of blogs. There is no essential difference between American blogs and China blogs. There are also "beautiful women" in American blogs, but in America, sex is not news. Only when sex and politics are combined, such as "the scandal between President Clinton and the White House intern", the mass media also scramble to follow up. In China, the news censorship and control of traditional media is still relatively strict compared with that of the United States. Therefore, in the early days of blogging, only information that conforms to the news value of traditional media can be followed up and amplified by mainstream media. So at first, the information about blogs that the public may learn from the mainstream media is irrelevant, or related to sex and violence, because many audiences can only see the information of blogs through secondary communication such as mass media, while traditional media filter their contents according to the news value of blog websites. This is why we can see that China's blog hitchhiked into public view on Muzimei. However, this situation will definitely change. The "three portals" website hyped the "Muzimei" incident, and also made a free promotion for the promotion of blogs in China. When blogs enter the mainstream and gain considerable voice, this situation will definitely change.

2 where is the blog "new"

2. 1 blog is different from the previous technical form.

Conceptually, long before the word "blog" appeared in China, online diaries, personal collections, forums and other functions on BBS were enough for netizens to build a simple online home. Engaging in small creations, collecting interesting materials and sharing them with others has long been a part of the daily life of many Internet users.

Blog is regarded as the fourth internet communication tool after email, BBS and ICQ. Then, what is the difference between blog log, a folk publishing method, BBS and personal homepage? Because there are many forms of blog websites and there are no certain rules, it is difficult to clearly draw the boundaries between them. This is only a preliminary analysis.

2. 1. 1 The difference between blog and BBS

The following picture shows the comparison between Wikipedia, the world's largest open encyclopedia, and BBS, a traditional online community. The producer of this picture is Tom Coates, a British blogger. 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, which reflects some enlightenment of the differences between the two:

First of all, comparing the styles of BBS posts and blog text, the content structure of blog text is more complicated. The post structure of BBS is relatively simple, usually an original message or comment, followed by other netizens' related speeches. The text of a blog is a blog's own original article or the latest online information clue searched and selected on a certain topic, which is simply sorted out and put on the internet for users with related hobbies and needs to share. Blog text often exists in the form of links. "The minimum amount of prompt text and rich link text can be said to be a more representative blog style". Blog text is a combination of original articles, link evaluations, links and posts. Compared with BBS's outspoken, arbitrary and emotional speeches, blog logs are more cautious, detailed and thorough, and the richness of a single text, the clarity of discussion context and the expansion space of topics exceed those of BBS's netizens.

Secondly, judging from the relationship between posts and text, blog text is relatively independent, and the sorting method is different from BBS. BBS posts are arranged in reverse time series, and the topics before and after posts may be continuous or changing. Different posts on the same topic are often scattered in different locations. So there is such a phenomenon in BBS posts. A large number of topic changes have accelerated the decline of topics, and the discussion of individual topics is fragmented and difficult to integrate. However, different texts of blog sites usually focus on different themes, and the texts are relatively independent, and each text itself is the expansion and deepening of a theme. Some texts are arranged in reverse chronological order, while others are arranged in order of importance. Take two domestic blog sites as examples. CNBlog.org is arranged in reverse chronological order, while the blog China is arranged by theme.

Third, from the purpose, BBS focuses more on speech and comments, while blog text pursues sharing. The significance of online BBS lies in that it breaks the limitation that the channels of opinion expression are monopolized by minority groups in the era of mass communication, and gives the public an equal opportunity to speak on the Internet. Blog websites, on the other hand, make full use of the possibility of sharing information published by individuals through the Internet, and contain a strong desire for information diffusion, which is aimed at readers and is different from BBS.

BBS blog

The technical implementation is simple and clear.

Moderators Management Settings Moderators None

Management costs are high and low.

Use personal statements to discuss problems.

The short message function of community support station is very weak.

Hyperlinks support weak promotion.

The quality of articles is relatively low and high (real name registration system type)

Real-name registration system Registration System with Weak Registration Control

The timeliness of news is very high

The cost of information search is high or low.

The technical difficulty of issuing documents is very low.

Non-mainstream information release moderators are easy to manage.

Information feedback is slow in real time.

-"On the Difference between Blog and BBS"

2. 1.2 Difference between Blog and Personal Homepage

Some researchers have analyzed the transformation process of netizens from forum speech to personal homepage and then to blog. Among them, we can see the difference between these three ways of expressing personal opinions: "Posting in public forums is a common form of online" broadcasting "speech. However, due to the management restrictions of the forum theme and moderators, Internet users who want to enjoy more freedom of expression and concentrate on preserving their opinions and remarks naturally turn to personal homepage solutions. But there are advantages and disadvantages. The difficulty of personal homepage lies in whether individuals have enough information resources to maintain their high charm coefficient for a long time. Starting from thinking about and solving this problem, some online individual users gradually turned to blog style. "

Blog website is the centralization of personal homepage. Personal websites are destined to be owned by only a few people because of the high requirements for netizens' technical level, financial conditions and maintenance resources, and the low threshold of blog websites makes them highly open. 1999, a company named Pyra Labs developed a software called Blogger, which enabled Internet users to make web pages without using complicated HTML computer code. The following year, the company established Blogspot.com, a website for storing blog works. This software and website are free. This makes blogs enter a period of rapid popularization. "There is no' technical content' in blogging, and there is no new technology; No need to register domain name, rent server space, FIP knowledge and many software tools; You don't need much knowledge of web page making. Users only need to apply for registration on online free or paid blog sites to own their own territory.

Blog websites also have publicity that personal homepages lack. Because the low entry cost of blog websites has attracted countless bloggers to participate, its appeal to readers, content tolerance and network click-through rate are by no means comparable to those of "single-family" personal websites. If a personal website is just a one-to-many communication outlet, involving private topics, private creations and the transformation of personal information such as personal life, career and emotion, then a blog website is a communication community for countless people, with both personal hobbies and public interests; There are both private opinions and group arguments; On the one hand, the value of blog is reflected in personalization, on the other hand, this personalization should be recognized by most people. Therefore, the key to the success of a blog lies in whether his comments on the content are original, whether the screening is reasonable, whether the recommendation is appropriate, and how convincing and attractive it is. Blogs should not only reflect themselves, but also consider the needs of the market.

3 the influence of blog

To analyze what kind of influence blog has, whether it is just a new round of conceptual hype or revolutionary information technology innovation, we must go back to the development of the whole network technology to find the answer. It should be said that the emergence of blog is in line with the inherent logic of the development of the whole network technology and culture.

Blog has two main functions: first, from the perspective of media communication, it represents a brand-new personal network publishing method of free publishing, which challenges the operation mode of traditional media industry. Secondly, from the perspective of knowledge management, it represents a new network mode of personal knowledge filtering and accumulation and in-depth dissemination, which has brought brand-new changes to organizational communication and social communication.

3. 1 Brand-new personal network publishing method

3. 1. 1 individuals and the public

Compared with BBS and personal homepage, the biggest feature of blog is to combine the personalized characteristics of personal homepage with the sharing and publicity characteristics of BBS. First of all, blogs are personal expressions, but they are not private. If BBS emphasizes too much publicity and personal homepage lacks too much publicity, then "blog" technology is the combination of the two. In the blog kingdom, what is really intriguing may be: a kind of most personalized content, but it has the most popular form.

The process of transforming individuals into the masses is a socialized process, which first needs a space for realization. This space is called "public domain" by Habermas. According to Habermas' theory, the public sphere refers to the public space between a country and society, in which citizens can speak freely without state intervention. In layman's terms, it refers to "the space for citizens to freely discuss public affairs and participate in politics, as a basic condition of democratic politics except political power". In this free space free from government intervention, Habermas emphasizes the public communication between citizens with reading as the intermediary and communication as the center. In an ideal democratic politics, the state can only assume the role of guarantor in the public sphere under the restriction of law, and it is an organ of power to protect freedom, but it cannot interfere. Habermas believes that the foundation of bourgeois public sphere 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 the society and the society was the state. Only with the expansion of market economic relations, hierarchical rule can be truly broken, civil society can emerge from the bottom, and the bourgeois public sphere can be gradually built. The public domain is composed of private individuals gathered in the public domain. They convey the needs of society to the country, but they are also part of the private sector. With the development of the public sphere, the transition from individuals to the public depends more and more on the mass media. Therefore, Habermas repeatedly emphasized the importance of media research in analyzing the structural transformation of the public sphere, and regarded media power as a new category of influence, believing that it not only affects the structure of the public sphere, but also dominates the public sphere. ③

The public sphere, 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, which is used by the government to measure the degree of control over people's non-public opinion, and to measure the degree of publicity that the leading group must strive for before it can be transformed into popularity. Popular is not equal to ordinary; But without publicity, popularity cannot be maintained for a long time. The emotion it reflects is a dependent variable of the temporarily created public domain, although it does not only depend on it. " In fact, the so-called "popularization" of mass media only describes a point-to-point mode of communication, and it cannot describe the openness of this mode of communication at the same time. Because when the state sees the important role of the public sphere in organizing the society, it also tries to control the society by manipulating the mass media, which is what Habermas called the socialization of the state. The mass media presupposes its own audience and passive recipients at the same time, which constitutes a one-way transmission relationship between mass media release and audience acceptance. In the second half of the structural transformation of the public sphere, Habermas paid attention to the transformation of the bourgeois public sphere. From the end of 19, the wealth imbalance caused by monopoly capitalism led to unequal control of the public sphere. Countries participating in the distribution of economic benefits have gradually controlled the media that originally served the public, and the democratic function of the media has been declining. Many free public service organizations have turned to private enterprises and started charging fees. "Social dialogue is managed". Therefore, media groups with political functions are manipulated by ideology, and the public and private fields tend to merge, from public and private to national and social integration. In a highly developed industrialized society, the structural framework of the public sphere is disintegrated by the dual process of state intervention and social dependence on state power. According to Habermas' view, "success is also Xiao He and failure is also Xiao He", which gave birth to capitalism in the bourgeois public sphere and personally destroyed it.

In newspapers, radio, television and other mass media, the participation of the audience itself is still strongly controlled. All the mass media are performing their "gatekeeper" functions, screening the topics and procedures of public debate through agenda setting, and choosing the guests and audiences suitable for the agenda. But even if you walk into the studio, you may become a public, but this possibility will be ruthlessly deleted in the later editing. In this case, is it possible to become a mass audience or can you just reluctantly return to the private sphere? "The media is company property ... you can't participate in the media. Getting the media out of the background is the first step. The second step is to distinguish the difference between the public and the audience. The audience is passive; And the public is full of participation. We need to define the media from the perspective of the public. " ⑤

Audience, public and public are three interrelated but obviously different concepts. If an individual wants to become a real public, not just an audience or the public, it depends on how much he can participate in society.

Many scholars are discussing how to realize the construction of "public sphere" through the reform of media management system. On this issue, the views of western liberal scholars and leftist scholars are totally different. The former criticizes political protectionism and advocates media marketization. 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.