Why blog?(And why not just relax and chill out in life, after all typing hurts) Part 1
Ever heard of something called computer related injuries. I didn’t, to be very frank, till a few days ago. For the record, it’s a set of injuries which you receive when you type excessively (at least this is what I got to hear)
Well, these words of caution were bombarded on me by an ex-colleague of mine, who apparently was doing some primary research on the incidence. I am yet to hear or ascertain the final word on it, but apparently the theory (or the hypothesis, for the puritans) sounds convincing. To follow a trail of logic, for instance, aren’t fingers moving repetitively in an unnatural manner while typing, and what if our job is to type and type voraciously as if it were the end of days. Say for example in the case of a computer operator.
The matter of the fact remains that even if it were untrue or exaggerated, it does leave an iota of doubt in one's mind and refrains him or her from typing, albeit for the fact that lazing around is the most formidable bastion of human pursuit.
So why blog at all!!!!
Around the same time, when I was being sermonized in a priestly manner by my motherly (insofar her treating me was concerned) colleague, I was also being exposed to something of a novelty happening on the World Wide Web. The phenomenon was called web-logging or simply enough blogging. (in fact, I was so smitten by the phenomenon, that I chose it to be one of the two mandatory presentations made by me while pursuing a course on Communication Studies and Developmental Communication in the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, the other being "How web chatting is changing our language"- though well received, both of them- I must admit that my choice of the two topics was incidental and had nothing to do with my fascination for world wide web, that is - if I had any)
Following the string of events, I argued that if the first edition of the Gulf War revolutionized the way Television was perceived as a gadget of mass communication - then the second edition had revolutionized the way World Wide Web is perceived as a tool of interpersonal communication.
In my opinion, prior to that, over the last few years following things had happened in the field of communication.
Firstly, the phenomena of LPG had edged out mass communication into private hands and had commercialized the role of much required public broadcaster. So all around, we saw that mass communication as a vehicle was captured by media moguls and even a modicum of public broadcasting which remained, had got excessively commercialized. (I read this book and I would like to recommend it over here- Ken Auleta's Three Blind Mice- it’s a commentary about the three big television networks of America and how they messed it up. Slightly dated, the commentary covers the period of 1980's. I don’t know if the author came up with a subsequent edition contemporizing his commentary as I happened to read its 1991 edition.)
Secondly, despite the claims of communication revolution happening all around, that the world is shrinking- the world actually, was getting increasingly lonelier place to live in. Increased and rapid development (if linearly defined and accepted) brought with it- geographical dislocations (and therefore wear and tear of the sociological fabric sustaining individuals), paucity of time and increasing stress levels. This meant that the inter-personal communication as a cathartic human activity was being edged out into oblivion. (One may counter that technology actually compensated for the geographical dislocation, but frankly I wasn't opinionated in my observations, but had based them on a quick survey. I did a small survey and asked the contents of conversation of few mother-son duo when they did it face to face prior to a geographical dislocation and when they were geographically dislocated and telephone became a via media for interpersonal communication. I found out that in the first case the communication hovered around topics like one's aspiration, status of relation with father and siblings and love life while in the second case the communication hovered around health, money matters, and studies. Though, admittedly, my survey suffered from a few disadvantages- one, the sample I surveyed was very small- two, it depicted a particular socio-cultural context – three, that since I knew the person in sample beforehand, it could have marred my objectivity- four, I am not a trained sociologist in any case)
The third development was a natural corollary to the two above. An individual was firstly dispossessed of the most natural way of communicating at micro-level and secondly at a macro-level he confronted a media which was increasingly being run on commercial benchmarks and thus wasn’t exactly talking about what he wanted them to. This was an unsustainable situation and needed a reorientation.
The reorientation happened at two levels- macro and micro.
At a macro level, in some cases the mass media de-elitized itself and in other a de-elitized media became a Unique Selling Proposition. Hypothetically speaking, I may argue that the rise of television news channels, with a pedestrian lingo and an eye for localized issues (which at a macro-level are a trivia), was a follow-up action. And mind you this didn’t only happen at television level- it also happened at level of Radio (with the rise of FM channels with slap-stick and street-smart production values), Print (with increasing localization and paparazzi-ation or page3-ization) and web-journalism (with increasing local websites or localization of global websites and proliferation of issue based web sites).
Though, the other facet of reorientation which happened at a micro-level was actually more powerful and yet remained unnoticed for a while, and how powerful it was, is something which we are realizing only now.
Well, these words of caution were bombarded on me by an ex-colleague of mine, who apparently was doing some primary research on the incidence. I am yet to hear or ascertain the final word on it, but apparently the theory (or the hypothesis, for the puritans) sounds convincing. To follow a trail of logic, for instance, aren’t fingers moving repetitively in an unnatural manner while typing, and what if our job is to type and type voraciously as if it were the end of days. Say for example in the case of a computer operator.
The matter of the fact remains that even if it were untrue or exaggerated, it does leave an iota of doubt in one's mind and refrains him or her from typing, albeit for the fact that lazing around is the most formidable bastion of human pursuit.
So why blog at all!!!!
Around the same time, when I was being sermonized in a priestly manner by my motherly (insofar her treating me was concerned) colleague, I was also being exposed to something of a novelty happening on the World Wide Web. The phenomenon was called web-logging or simply enough blogging. (in fact, I was so smitten by the phenomenon, that I chose it to be one of the two mandatory presentations made by me while pursuing a course on Communication Studies and Developmental Communication in the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, the other being "How web chatting is changing our language"- though well received, both of them- I must admit that my choice of the two topics was incidental and had nothing to do with my fascination for world wide web, that is - if I had any)
Following the string of events, I argued that if the first edition of the Gulf War revolutionized the way Television was perceived as a gadget of mass communication - then the second edition had revolutionized the way World Wide Web is perceived as a tool of interpersonal communication.
In my opinion, prior to that, over the last few years following things had happened in the field of communication.
Firstly, the phenomena of LPG had edged out mass communication into private hands and had commercialized the role of much required public broadcaster. So all around, we saw that mass communication as a vehicle was captured by media moguls and even a modicum of public broadcasting which remained, had got excessively commercialized. (I read this book and I would like to recommend it over here- Ken Auleta's Three Blind Mice- it’s a commentary about the three big television networks of America and how they messed it up. Slightly dated, the commentary covers the period of 1980's. I don’t know if the author came up with a subsequent edition contemporizing his commentary as I happened to read its 1991 edition.)
Secondly, despite the claims of communication revolution happening all around, that the world is shrinking- the world actually, was getting increasingly lonelier place to live in. Increased and rapid development (if linearly defined and accepted) brought with it- geographical dislocations (and therefore wear and tear of the sociological fabric sustaining individuals), paucity of time and increasing stress levels. This meant that the inter-personal communication as a cathartic human activity was being edged out into oblivion. (One may counter that technology actually compensated for the geographical dislocation, but frankly I wasn't opinionated in my observations, but had based them on a quick survey. I did a small survey and asked the contents of conversation of few mother-son duo when they did it face to face prior to a geographical dislocation and when they were geographically dislocated and telephone became a via media for interpersonal communication. I found out that in the first case the communication hovered around topics like one's aspiration, status of relation with father and siblings and love life while in the second case the communication hovered around health, money matters, and studies. Though, admittedly, my survey suffered from a few disadvantages- one, the sample I surveyed was very small- two, it depicted a particular socio-cultural context – three, that since I knew the person in sample beforehand, it could have marred my objectivity- four, I am not a trained sociologist in any case)
The third development was a natural corollary to the two above. An individual was firstly dispossessed of the most natural way of communicating at micro-level and secondly at a macro-level he confronted a media which was increasingly being run on commercial benchmarks and thus wasn’t exactly talking about what he wanted them to. This was an unsustainable situation and needed a reorientation.
The reorientation happened at two levels- macro and micro.
At a macro level, in some cases the mass media de-elitized itself and in other a de-elitized media became a Unique Selling Proposition. Hypothetically speaking, I may argue that the rise of television news channels, with a pedestrian lingo and an eye for localized issues (which at a macro-level are a trivia), was a follow-up action. And mind you this didn’t only happen at television level- it also happened at level of Radio (with the rise of FM channels with slap-stick and street-smart production values), Print (with increasing localization and paparazzi-ation or page3-ization) and web-journalism (with increasing local websites or localization of global websites and proliferation of issue based web sites).
Though, the other facet of reorientation which happened at a micro-level was actually more powerful and yet remained unnoticed for a while, and how powerful it was, is something which we are realizing only now.
