On Monday, June 26th, BBC News, the British global news broadcaster, announced that its online editors were launching a blog that same day. Aiming for innovation and transparency, BBC news decided that a blog would be the ideal forum for an open debate between its readers and its writers—embodying the essential trait of web logs: a balance of power between the producers and consumers of news. That is not to say that now, with this blog, readers of BBC news online will share equal power with its editors, but its creation does shed light on some interesting points about blogs.
Transparency: BBC’s article quotes Jeff Jarvis on the importance of blogs in terms of journalistic and corporate transparency. Whereas letters to editors are seldom published, comments are immediately posted, which allow for an exchange between readers and mainstream journalists.
The adoption of a transparent attitude, of which an editors’ blog is just a part, is a statement that journalism isn’t made silently behind the walls of a castle, [Jarvis] says. “It says ‘We’re going to share the process.’ And in return, people can say ‘We disagree’ or ‘We agree’, or ‘I thought that was the wrong decision but I see why you made it.’
Still, this is not to say that the blog will allow readers to interfere with the content on BBC’s webpage. Rather, they will be able to see and comment on the process. Perhaps this is a trait of all corporate blogs, but the ‘exchange’ seems to be replaced by a repeated process of “expose and reply”. Definitely an improvement, but I cannot help but say that it does not seem to live up to its pretensions of complete transparency and exchange. Jarvis makes it clear for me when he says: “We, the journalists, are still in charge.”
Objectivity: If Jarvis and other journalists consider transparency to be the web’s and blogs’ “greatest virtue”, then exposing the journalistic process would be central and sufficient to the satisfaction of the consumers of news. However, BBC’s article brings up the important concept of objectivity—of news broadcasters determining what they consider to be true as news.
People’s opinions on subjects vary according to several influential factors, such as culture, religion, and gender. If the web allowed for all of these opinions to be voiced (provided the opinions had Internet access), then the concept of objectivity would be abrogated by challenges to what was seen as “truth”. But according to Jarvis, the determination of what is true is shaken by the journalists’ personal opinions. Therefore, though they thought that the dissemination of objective news was the Internet’s greatest triumph, blogs have shown them that granting the readers the agency to decide what is true is in fact its most valuable trait.
In the case of this blog posting, commenting on the validity of blogs and on people’s objectivity is somewhat confusing and self-referential to say the least. How can we know what experiences and opinions cloud my judgment of the truth? We can’t. In my opinion, this is what makes blogs such influential publishing tools: with a few words anyone can proselytize or criticize. And in doing so, the delineations of truth and fact are distorted, becoming more flexible and susceptible to fluctuations in opinion and thought.
Anonymous Said:
on June 27, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Assinnyilleld Said:
on November 16, 2007 at 6:45 am
Two new studies show why some people are more attractive for members of the opposite sex than others.
The University of Florida, Florida State University found that physically attractive people almost instantly attract the attention of the interlocutor, sobesednitsy with them, literally, it is difficult to make eye. This conclusion was reached by a series of psychological experiments, which were determined by the people who believe in sending the first seconds after the acquaintance. Here, a curious feature: single, unmarried experimental preferred to look at the guys, beauty opposite sex, and family, people most often by representatives of their sex.
The authors believe that this feature developed a behavior as a result of the evolution: a man trying to find a decent pair to acquire offspring. If this is resolved, he wondered potential rivals. Detailed information about this magazine will be published Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
In turn, a joint study of the Rockefeller University, Rockefeller University and Duke University, Duke University in North Carolina revealed that women are perceived differently by men smell. During experiments studied the perception of women one of the ingredients of male pheromone-androstenona smell, which is contained in urine or sweat.
The results were startling: women are part of this repugnant odor, and the other part is very attractive, resembling the smell of vanilla, and the third group have not felt any smell. The authors argue that the reason is that the differences in the receptor responsible for the olfactory system, from different people are different.
It has long been proven that mammals (including human) odor is one way of attracting the attention of representatives of the opposite sex. A detailed article about the journal Nature will publish.
snack Said:
on June 2, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Snack says : I absolutely agree with this !