The Book Show picked up the theme of blogging today. I’m a complete fan of the Book Show – how they pump out 40 odd minutes of good content each day beats me. Ramona Koval is a good sort – good fun to listen to. Unfortunately, like so many MSM encounters with blogdom, it was a bit of a disappointment, featuring Susan Wyndham an MSM literary commentator who dabbles in a blog on the side and someone who was bemoaning the way in which the blogging world is reducing the authority of the print medium. His views were fine, but why they didn’t have anyone on from Sarsparilla or Matlida beats me.
Good at least that Wyndham mentioned the Sars, Matilda etc.
Rather than blogging showering worshipful status on the amateur and lacking the ability to be filtered between the worthwhile and not, reading blogs has given me a far greater access to the expertise of mavens that I ever could have had before. In fact, it provides people with huge stores of knowledge and experience in alot of very specialised and even obscure areas an outlet and readers a way in which would never happen soley in “print culture,” for lack of space if nothing else. Consider the blog carnival phenom, for a start. Any topic you can think of practically, swarming with experts.
Which is why neither Andrew Keene’s schitck or the complaints on the Book Show ring true to me.
I like Romana Koval too (although I have a mental block which confuses her with Rachael Kohn, who has me reaching for the dial instantly.)
Yes I agree Amanda, thought the blogging ‘naysayer’ on this show was pretty low key and reasonable. What blogging does is make connections possible it seems to me. It massively enriches the ‘ecology of expertise’ if that doesn’t sound too ponderous a term!
The blogging ‘skeptic’ was Sven Birkets, a pretty big hitter in the literary studies world. To be fair even if the RN researchers had looked at Sars in the last few days, they wouldn’t have seen much literary blogging.
I think book blogging is a bit on the gossipy side, generally – actually reviewing books is too time-intensive to fit comfortable with blogging. readers have to get a feel for the blogger, have to trust the blogger, but to do the right thing by readers, you have to give them more than one post every ten days. It’s difficult to do that if you’re going to read everything you post about (and if you’re not going to, why bother at all?)
Unfortunately the RN discussion focused mainly on the credentialism question. Blogging credibility I think is often derived from relations established over time, and so it is perhaps invisible to people who have just dropped in.
My impatience with doomy discussions like this one comes mainly from the fact that journalists are seldom willing to concede they might not have access to the full picture.
MSM electronic journalism is also intensely phobic of not getting ‘good talent’ and they worry that they’ll get stuttering, introverted, geeky, boffins on their shows who can’t string two words together (vvvvv.vvvvv.vvvverbally that is).
They’re also a bit locked into dichotomies. The big question on everyone’s lips is will Net 2.0 do in MSM journalism as we know it. The answer is that it won’t. It just enriches the context for MSM journalism and other forms of production. It’s a new genre and different genres all have their strengths and weaknesses.
I’d have to agree with Laura. Blogging about literature from an artistic or academic perspective seems just a tad ‘First Tuesday Bookclub-ish’ to me.
not that there’s anything wrong with that ;)