1st Semester Blogging Reflection

I’m not trying to be cynical or overly critical, as my blog lens may suggest, but being brutally honest I can’t say I’ve learned much from blogging. I suppose that doesn’t really accurately address the prompt though, since I’m not supposed to be reflecting on what I’ve learned from blogging, but what I’ve learned about blogging. In this case, the simplest and most universally true answer I can give is that blogging is very much an investment. An investment of time, effort, personality, and priority where what you receive as enriching and stimulating takeaways is directly proportional to the work and care you put in to the blogging process.

It is probably for this reason that I’m still skeptical of blogs. Before engaging in the process myself, I didn’t have the most positive perception of the productivity and usefulness of blogs. I pretty much assumed that they existed in their own little microcosm of the internet, and more often than not the only people who cared about the content and quality of a particular blog is the author themselves. Obviously this sentiment isn’t true, but it is definitely problematic; as a form of media, part of the purpose of blogs should be to engage people in thought and conversation about some important topic. The open-endedness seems to disadvantage blogs though, where they tend to drown each other out in the chatter, purely as a product of their existence. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to give a dissertation on why blogs, are counter productive, I’m just trying to convey the point that I didn’t have the healthiest view of how blogs could be advantageous prior to having to write one myself. Parts of this hyper-negative point of view has definitely subsided over the course of maintaining my own blog, but unfortunately it some of it remains.  

I haven’t been able to bust my preconceived notion that blogs exist predominantly in their own respective microcosms of the outrageously vast internet. What I have found is that this isn’t entirely a bad thing. If the target audience for a blog happens to be pretty limited, like that of our Academy class, then blogging can actually be an appropriately sized forum for us to communicate ideas. We’ve effectively carved out a little section of the internet to collaborate and communicate amongst ourselves, something I value as one of the most important aspects of the Academy program. The most constructive and useful blog posts are those like Matthew’s on Wal-Mart, and Ross’s on the ICC, because they’re cogent, original posts, followed by a bevvy of equally interesting and stimulating comments from others. I know my own thoughts and opinions thrive off of other people’s, which I consider to be a healthy sign of openness and sympathy. As old fashioned as it may sound, I’m a firm believer that the best, most effective form of communication is face to face conversation, but blogging has been interesting in the sense that it’s extended ideas from our class and conversations to places where we can let ideas sit and ruminate, later reconvening online to further discuss them. This is probably the ideal use of blogs, to serve as a supplement to continue dialogue that already exists amongst a group of people, and a platform to revisit ideas deserving more attention.

It would make sense that the ideal usage of blogs emphasizes what I consider to be the single statement I’ve learned to be absolutely true of blogs, that they’re an investment. I’ve found my own blog to be most significant and interesting when I write posts that other people comment on and use for discussion. Whether people agree with me or not, their interest alone validates what I’ve written about as important and worth sharing. This is part of the reason I picked a blog lens that could potentially be pretty inflammatory, and Jacob’s comment on my first real post saying, “I love the fact that you raised this issue,” was comforting in a vindicating sort of way.

As we continue with these blogs, I think the healthiest thing for our blogging community would be more investment. This definitely entails an element of group effort, but for myself I’d like to continue to write posts that stir conversation and inquiry amongst readers. Through increased comments and continuing to incorporate what might be becoming my blog’s trademark phrase, “is this such a bad thing?,” I just want to keep things interesting and entertaining.

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