Blogging as a new form of media

The word blog is a shortened version of weblog. A blog can be defined as a certain website created and maintained by an individual. The individual can post comments, describe certain events as well as to post graphics and videos. A blog can be used in a combination of images and text and as a link to other blogs. There is a number of different types of blogs, eg. personal blogs, which is like a personal journal kept by the individual or a corporate blog, which is normally for business purposes. Many bloggers engage in participatory journalism, which is also known as as public, citizen, democratic or street journalism. Participatory journalism refers to the fact that the members of the public play an active role with regard to collecting, preparing and analyzing news. This form of media includes people's articles, even though the individual may or may not be a qualified journalist. The form of news might be some local event which occurred and was not published in the mainstream newspaper or the individual could post onto blog a factual error which was published in the mainstream newspaper. This manner of distributing news benefits the reader in the sense that the reader can read whatever news which is made available and can post his or her comment with regard to the article immediately. Newspapers such as The Argus or Die Burger, includes articles which the qualified journalist writes. The Editor decides whether the article is of newsworthy material and what the title of the article should be. This indicates that, in the case of The Argus or Die Burger, Independent Newspapers decides what the reader should have access to read and what not. Blogging allows people to decide for themselves. They can decide what is newsworthy and important to them which i think is a very good and effective form of media.