Why blog?(And why not just relax and chill out in life, after all typing hurts) Part 3... and thankfully, the concluding.
In part one, I discussed about the need for a media orientation and how this media orientation at the micro-level was extremely powerful. It was so powerful, because firstly it was conveniently empowering every individual to have his say and secondly this media orientation couldn't be controlled by the media czars or ruling elites. The reason was simple, the entry barriers to this media were so low that anybody and practically anybody could claim a stake in it and through it, without anything stopping him. And this being a truly transnational media, was beyond the ambit of sovereignties of nations.
In part one, I also stated that this media orientation was essentially precipitated by the second edition of the gulf war. It may be an exaggeration for some but nevertheless this media was instrumental in empowering an entire populace to give their own version of a war, when practically the whole world was against them and when the media world fell trap to an amusing version of journalism, called embedded journalism. When world was going gaga over an amazing capability of an entity called smart bomb that could quite prophetically ascertain the ideology of a person, before bombing him black and blue. This community started using this media to air their grievances, to tell the world that these smart bombs are not that smart.
It did another wonderful thing- world over. It empowered the till-now dislocated and marginalized groups to return to their roots, albeit intangibly. It allowed them to form virtual forums and virtual communities, to interact and to share their emotions, to form coalitions against the forces which separated them, dislocated them. People pooled in their individual core-competencies to form a model of human interactions which was beyond the scope of monetary market system, where things were not bought and sold but exchanged on a communistic principle- from one's ability to one's need- which till the advent of this media orientation was difficult, so as to say, loosely- and impossible, so as to say, strictly.
And it used one of the most powerful media inventions ever made by humans, for this purpose. The internet (see Part 2).
Internet, is a funny thing. It started as a military/scientific invention and till very recently was accessible to an elite minority, only. Slowly but surely it fell into the hands to big businesses. Quick decision making and alacrity being their hallmark, they grabbed the tool to their advantage. Then came a dot-com boom- when this business tool, itself became a business- when huge data carrying capacities were laid down, with an anticipation that the boom will keep on growing and thus earning huge returns. But the boom faltered and the huge capacities became useless. The market forces tried utilizing them- in fact, the entire outsourcing business emanated from the availability of this overcapacity. (Read the book by Thomas Friedman- The world is flat, to understand how it all happened), but they could not consume the whole of it. As a result of this demand-supply mismatch the cost of internet as a medium plummeted to abysmally low levels- the marginal entry-barrier became zero and it became very easy for you and me to access this medium. And it being a convergence technology, the internet could do a lot more than its predecessor intermediate technologies, and at a fraction of the cost.
In part one, I also stated that this media orientation was essentially precipitated by the second edition of the gulf war. It may be an exaggeration for some but nevertheless this media was instrumental in empowering an entire populace to give their own version of a war, when practically the whole world was against them and when the media world fell trap to an amusing version of journalism, called embedded journalism. When world was going gaga over an amazing capability of an entity called smart bomb that could quite prophetically ascertain the ideology of a person, before bombing him black and blue. This community started using this media to air their grievances, to tell the world that these smart bombs are not that smart.
It did another wonderful thing- world over. It empowered the till-now dislocated and marginalized groups to return to their roots, albeit intangibly. It allowed them to form virtual forums and virtual communities, to interact and to share their emotions, to form coalitions against the forces which separated them, dislocated them. People pooled in their individual core-competencies to form a model of human interactions which was beyond the scope of monetary market system, where things were not bought and sold but exchanged on a communistic principle- from one's ability to one's need- which till the advent of this media orientation was difficult, so as to say, loosely- and impossible, so as to say, strictly.
And it used one of the most powerful media inventions ever made by humans, for this purpose. The internet (see Part 2).
Internet, is a funny thing. It started as a military/scientific invention and till very recently was accessible to an elite minority, only. Slowly but surely it fell into the hands to big businesses. Quick decision making and alacrity being their hallmark, they grabbed the tool to their advantage. Then came a dot-com boom- when this business tool, itself became a business- when huge data carrying capacities were laid down, with an anticipation that the boom will keep on growing and thus earning huge returns. But the boom faltered and the huge capacities became useless. The market forces tried utilizing them- in fact, the entire outsourcing business emanated from the availability of this overcapacity. (Read the book by Thomas Friedman- The world is flat, to understand how it all happened), but they could not consume the whole of it. As a result of this demand-supply mismatch the cost of internet as a medium plummeted to abysmally low levels- the marginal entry-barrier became zero and it became very easy for you and me to access this medium. And it being a convergence technology, the internet could do a lot more than its predecessor intermediate technologies, and at a fraction of the cost.
Now the concluding part, we discussed that a dislocated person looses his ability to inter-personally communicate effectively and is confronted with a media which is not talking his or her language. This being an unsustainable situation brings around a media re-orientation. This happens at two level- the micro-level being orchestrated by internet. Internet has the power to make geographical separation, meaningless and make temporal separation, negotiable. It gives an individual, the power to voice himself without restrictions, to interact by transcending geographical and temporal frontiers, to form coalitions without being prohibited by the otherwise omni-present state apparatus.
And the most efficient way of doing that is by web-logging. Primarily so, because it allows one to express an array of emotions, solicit and elicit response on them and refine his emotion with an informed commentary. It doesn't have a space restraint, it is not imposive in nature, its not opaque and therefore not closed in character. There can be other models of communicating via internet- say through chain emails, say through forums and say through hosting a web site. But all of them have one shortcoming or the other. An email can be imposive and thus can be a spam (in fact, most of them become one), a forum can at times be sabotaged, a website is not without a zero marginal entry-barrier. On the other hand, for a web-log you need not have any specialized ability. It being personal, can't be theoretically sabotaged. And a visitor visits a web-log on his own sweet volition and therefore a blog is non-imposive in nature.
So in the end, this commentary brings me to my original question. Why blog at all?
Web log because, its your voice and your choice. In a world when human voice is being submerged in a cacophonous market-place. In a world when choices are not formed based on one's liking or dis-likings, but on the basis of carefully administered images by a hidden but omnipresent propaganda machine. In fact at times, even the choices are doctored within the minds of humans.
At times, you will feel disheartened by the reach of your blog, a few when compared to a humanity reached by the commercially run mass media, but then in your hearts of heart, one can relish the fact that he has aired his voice, and has been able to attract a few by word of mouth, who read him, understand him out of choice and not out of lack of choice. Whose readership is interactive and not passive, and that his voice enriches them, or gets enriched by them. Your readers may be an invisible community but nevertheless close to your heart, they are your people- from whom you were displaced, spatially because per-chance you were born in a different geographical and temporal setting.
And that is why I write this article.
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