It’s been a while since I’ve posted in the old school girl category, but I’ve got a post that truly belongs here, so brush off your mouse and kick your feet up - we’re bloggin’ tonight!
I actually have a blogging assignment for my media law class. Yes! How very modern of Dr. B., eh? The assignment is not to blog just for the sake of blogging. No, that would be far too narcissistic; we know that blogging is not about the self, but about contributing thoughts, ideas, and sharing information and insights with the masses. Well, it’s sometimes that; very often, though, blogging is a narcissisto-fest.
So, then, on to the assignment:
“The ethical dilemma of blogging,” an article by Patrick Beeson, was given to the class by Dr. B (no relation to Beeson). In it, Beeson discusses the notion of standards and ethics among bloggers and suggests that perhaps blogs are not as transparent as they might be. Transparency would lend credibility, but of course nobody can force bloggers to be honest, ethical, or to credit their sources.
(NOTE: “…transparency — that is, opening up the processes of journalism to audiences — may help strengthen the credibility of mainstream journalists.” - Jon Ziomek)
So there’s the ethical dilemma of blogging. Toss into that our recent class discussions about the first amendment, focusing primarily on free speech (it is a media class, after all). And then for good measure, let’s add John Milton’s “marketplace of ideas” theory, and you’ve got my class assignment. More specifically, we are to take Milton’s idea and apply it to blogging - is blogging a good idea in terms of Milton’s marketplace? And finally, will truth prevail?
Let’s start with some background, shall we? Technorati (who calls itself “the authority on what’s going on in the world of weblogs”) claims to track 18.8 million sites. According to a Pew Internet Report, “44% of U.S. Internet users have contributed their thoughts and their files to the online world.”
The blog is a reflection of our society, no doubt. We started with afternoon talk shows which featured guests spilling family secrets, attacking one another, and allowing themselves to be embarrassed in public makeovers. We moved on to personal web sites that share the same sort of stuff; now we have blogs (web + log = blog), which started as online diaries or journals -logs- and have been taken up by political campaigns, newspapers, television networks, and journalists. There are even photo blogs, telling stories by way of images.
John Milton (1608-1674) was a British scholar, poet, and philosopher. A few Milton quotes: “Give me liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”
“Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let Her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?”
According to author Clay Jenkinson, “Milton’s majestic prose was marshaled against the Puritan government’s licensing act of June 1643, which could be used to impose prior restraint on authors whose views it disliked. Milton provided the classical formulation of the principle that truth is most likely to emerge in a ‘free and open encounter.’”
And, of course, I cannot omit this: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” -First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Now, then, Beeson’s article addresses blogging in relation to media, which from where I’m sitting does not include bloggers such as myself. Although my academic focus, or cognate, is journalism, I am not a journalist - unless you count my blogging activities to be journalism. I believe that Beeson is talking about people who masquerade as journalists via their blogs, and in that way may mislead readers. You will find that, even though I do not call myself a journalist, nor am I paid by any publication to write here or elsewhere, I include links to my quotes and sources. You may not know my real name (to protect myself from wackadoodles), but you can email me. So long as you are not an evil mechanized spam-spawner, you can even leave comments about specific posts.
There are those, however, who do not include sources or references - and their blogs assume the posture of journalism, presenting their written wares as equals to Time Magazine, the New York Times, or electronic publications such as can be found on E-Journals.org.
The dangers of such blogs can be compared to the dangers of those anonymous web sites that students are so often citing in their essays these days. And in each class that calls for a research essay, the professor reminds the students that sources from the web must be “real” sources - not “Bob’s Site About Benjamin Franklin,” or some such thing. This should be obvious, and yet it’s important to remember that ours is a society of fast answers and instant gratification - and we often believe what we read because it’s in print. Or in these electronic times, we believe what we read because it’s on a web site.
So then anonymous blogs -that is, blogs that provide no accountability such as citing sources, signing one’s true name to written pieces, or providing contact information- are not reliable as sources of factual information. They may provide one with further avenues to pursue, which I have found on many occasions. Sometimes I will search on a term and end up at a blog; the blog is simply someone’s opinion, yet from the blog, I find a name or other information that sends me further on my path to finding whatever it is I’m seeking. But the blog itself is often not the primary source of truthful and reliable information - it must be verified.
I believe that personal accountability is now not only the job of the writer; it is also the job of the reader. That is, if the reader wants to know that what he or she has read (and may possibly quote or refer to) is truthful, the reader must assume the responsibility of verifying the material. This is not always the case, but in reference to blogs, I think this is absolutely the case. As a writer, it is my responsibility to check the facts of the material I plan to use. When preparing to write this post, for example, I reviewed a number of sites with information about Milton; there were many pages available, some personal, some academic papers, some from educational institutions, and others from journals. I looked up statistics about blogging so that I would be able to present a bit of reference for those who are unfamiliar with the blogging craze.
Will truth prevail? The truth is out there, and so is a bunch of other stuff - stuff made up of opinions, rumors, and imagined concoctions. And let’s not forget Jenkinson’s statement about Milton, “truth is most likely to emerge in a ‘free and open encounter.’”
And is the web a “free and open encounter”? I believe it is. Perhaps, though, Truth is fighting it out against an army of lies, rumors, and suppositions. Truth stands a far better chance of emerging if those who seek it don’t stop the minute they find one source -an anonymous blog, for example- that suits their fancy. In other words, truth will be found by those who seek it and it will only prevail if consumers -writers, readers, and bloggers- demand that it does.
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Sources:
Beeson, Patrick. “The ethical dilemma of blogging.” Quill Magazine, p. 18-19. April 2005.
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Jenkinson, Clay. “From Milton to Media: Information Flow in a Free Society.” Center for Media Literacy. Jenkinson
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“Online Activities and Pursuits.” Pew Internet Report. 02/29/2004. Pew
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Technorati. About. Technorati
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“The English Enlightenment: John Milton, John Locke, David Hume, John Stuart Mill.” Radford University. Freedom First: Free Speech and Free Press for Students of Media Law and Media History. Radford
U.S. Constitution. Legal Information Institute. LII
Ziomek, Jon. Associate Professor of Journalism, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University. Transparency quote. Ziomek
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Related sites of potential interest:
Cyberjournalist.net
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