Until a Couple of weeks ago when I started Cook’s Blog, My interest
in blogging was minimal to nonexistent. I did not know anyone who did it and I
imagined it to be an activity performed by a few lonely people that had way too
much time on their hands. However, after a little research, it appears that
blogging is BIG business and the popularity of it, is truly mind blowing. For
example, Google’s Blogger app, the one I am using now to write this Blog is
“the leading blogging site in the U.S...It has 46 million unique visitors each
month.” (http://socialmediatoday.com/mikevelocity/1698201/blogging-stats-2013-infographic)
A truly staggering figure when you consider that it is only one blogging
website and the whole population of North America makes up only 11.4% of the
worlds Internet users. (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm)
It is Clear that Google have big ambitions to establish total dominance within
this market, like they seem to do in a lot of markets! but who are the other big players in blog world? well Number 1 spot goes to Arianna Huffington and her blog is called The Huffington
Post http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/
§ The Huffington Post is the most popular and most
profitable Blog in the world. It makes a humble “2.33 million dollars every
month in advertisement revenue.” (http://socialmediatoday.com/mikevelocity/1698201/blogging-stats-2013-infographic)
It has editions available to suit most
countries and Languages. However, for the purpose of this research I will be
focusing on the U.K edition. On Face value, the Huffington post is laid out
like most online newspapers. Various newsworthy topics are available to click
onto, ranging from politics, business, sport, tech, etc. Although the home page
view takes a selection of blogs from any topic area and down the left hand side of
the home page there is a featured writer blog posts. These Blogs are written
by high profile individuals.
§ Dawn Airey is the senior vice president of Yahoo
and in her blog, she wants everyone to know ‘what television can learn from
Yahoo’ but does she really want television to learn from Yahoo or is she just
boasting about her company’s success to boost the profile of the company or her
own position within the company.
§ The former Conservative cabinet minister David
Mellor is urging The Prime minister to ‘fess up’ over future plans for our
involvement in Europe.
It It is clear that he has an axe to grind with David Cameron in his language use and he
does not believe the Prime Minister is telling the truth to the people. The French philosopher Foucault claimed there
is always a battle for the truth, “the true and the false are separated and the
specific effects of power are attached to the true ” (Gordon 1980:131) This
would suggest that Mellor could be trying to strip away the PM’s power by
claiming that Cameron is being false and only he is telling the real truth, he
then acquirers the specific effects of power that Foucault is describing. Yet,
this is a perfect example of the magic of Blogging. For one moment in time, you are given a voice, an audience, and
some power of opinion that quite frankly did not exist 20 years ago! Having said that the political opinions of a
disgraced ex member of parliament cannot
be taken as totally unbiased and they could be masking personal agendas.Therefore, I would argue it is important to get the views and perspectives of senior officials in their chosen field of
expertise but their motives for writing these blog’s always have to be
seriously questioned.
§
From a social
scientific research point of view, it could still be useful as qualitative data
as these “forms of investigation tend to be based on a recognition of the importance
of the subjective, experiential ‘lifeworld’ of human beings.” (Burns 2000:11) Although,
The Huffington Post is probably not the best example of subjective Information,
when its primary goal is to sell advertising space. It depends on what
research you were interested in finding. Let’s say for example, You were
looking at posts telling new mothers the facts around breast feeding, if these
blogs were placed next to advertisements selling formula milk, then It is
doubtful that you are receiving subjective knowledge, Therefore, it would be more
ethical to look at non profiting blogs run by new mothers with no profile to
promote. For instance, http://mythnomore.blogspot.co.uk/
is a good example of a blog that aims to
dispel breastfeeding myth’s and provide accurate, up to date information that
is provided by ordinary mothers. This would be considered a much better tool
when collecting subjective data for your social scientific research. It is down
to the researcher to ensure that the materials collected are as accurate and ethically sourced as possible.
Reference List
Burns, B, R, (2000) Introduction
to Research methods, 4th edition, Sage publications, London.
Gordon, C (1980) Power/Knowledge :selected Interviews and
other writing, 1972-1977 Pantheon Books, New York.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/
Date accessed 06,03,2014
(http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm)
Date accessed 06,03,2014
http://mythnomore.blogspot.co.uk/ Date accessed 10,03,2014
(http://socialmediatoday.com/mikevelocity/1698201/blogging-stats-2013-infographic)
Date accessed 06,03,2014
§
