Response to "Blogging, the nihilist impulse"

One of the most important issues that Geert Lovink touches on in his article about blogging is the impact that this writing technology has on the mainstream media. While Lovink asserts that the negative impact blogging has on traditional journalism is intentional, I would not go that far. However, I am in undoubted agreement with Lovink that blogging and other forms of Web 2.0 technologies have definitely reduced the influence and popularity of the mainstream media as a whole.

The ease of use of technologies such as blogging and YouTube has clearly brought the influence of traditional media organizations down. Anyone with access to a functioning computer and internet connection has the ability to upload their thoughts and ideas almost instantaneously to a potentially worldwide audience. In addition, ordinary citizens have the ability to become journalists in their own right. This is possible partially through their ability to post videos of something they have witnessed or to create a blog post about something they have seen, heard, or witnessed. Therefore, these technologies definitely put more power into the hands of ordinary people on a daily basis.

The effects of this upswing in the use of Web 2.0 technologies in conjunction with the ongoing economic crisis have clearly had an effect on the financial success of many of the traditional news outlets. In the past few months, several newspapers such as the Rocky Mountain News in Denver have closed their doors and no longer publish their newspapers. In addition, major newspapers including the New York Times, while not yet shutting down operations, are experiencing huge financial problems. There can be no doubt that blogging, in particular, is encouraging this trend.

While Lovink appears to believe that this would be a preferred product of bloggers, I tend to disagree. Firstly, I do not think that bloggers set out to destroy traditional media outlets, I think they simply set out to challenge them and potentially change them. Secondly, I think that bloggers partially depend on these traditional media outlets as sources of information and controversy. While it is true that ordinary people now have the ability to become “pajama journalists” this does not give them the capacity to follow and cover news stories in a way that traditional media outlets do. For example, someone who works a 9 to 5 job in New York but also maintains a political blog, does not have the ability to attend rallies and travel around the country with political candidates. In addition, blogs depend on mainstream media outlets as a source of controversy and linking to these traditional outlets with some commentary can lead to many hits for certain bloggers. An example of this practice can also be seen in, but is not limited to, the political realm. Both sides of the political aisle have websites that utilize Web 2.0 to criticize media outlets that they deem to have a bias towards either conservatism or liberalism. The conservatives have the Media Research Center which criticizes traditional media outlets such as the New York Times or NBC News and the liberals have Media Matters which criticizes media outlets such as Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. Thus, it is clear that some blogs depend on the existence and partial success of traditional media outlets such as newspapers and network news as a means for their own success.