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In Dross, Gloss and Brilliance, Gavin Clabaugh explores some questions about the value of weblogs and whether they are worth reading, along with a related question about how ideas flow from the fringes to the mainstream and on to the dustbin of time. The conclusions in each case seem to be that blogs are not a genre the way science fiction is, but rather are many different things that happen to travel through the same medium.
What I enjoyed most about this piece was Gavin's description of how to adapt the Molitar Model and related methods of emerging issue analysis to the world of new media and data availability. He proposes catagorizing online channels into one of four quadrants based on historical analysis of their content and timing: Fringe, Precursor, National Media, and Resolution. (He would do this using what he calls "Reverse Google" but which can already be done using the Internet Archive.) Then you would have a living framework for identifying emerging issues. Plus, depending on what quadrant you like to work in, you might learn what blogs were worth reading.
Posted: 8/13/07; 3:51:25 PM # |
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