The Digital Storytelling Assignment
This was the first time I have written fictional content for a blog. I have never written blog entries before but found it to be very easy. The goal of blogging is to have your content able to be read by many people, which is why the site is highly user friendly. The easier it is to access, the more customers it will acquire. Other routes of digital media that I have encountered have been equally as manageable as the Google sites. This is due to the fact that the website programmers want to make these sites as simple to use as possible therefore they can widen their network of users to as many people as possible. As a writer, the availability of your work would be your greatest concern and with this type of media, you could ensure your work was out there and could be easily read. That’s where print media lacks in this aspect.
With the exception of being on a digital interface, a blog is akin to a journal. One writes whatever they want to in it. This is a very different way of addressing the text one is writing from say that of a research paper. In the case of this digital storytelling project, we had a specific set of guidelines to follow but usually it is a creative and free style of writing. Again, this affects the credibility of the information you encounter on the Internet. The authority of any work that is posted on the Internet is questioned because the Internet is so user friendly and accessible by any person.
To conclude, this project was unlike any that I have ever worked on before. While, it was less of a free writing and guide less assignment, it was very creative. A blog in its natural form is a creative medium that allows for its text, design and features to be created by the author. This easy to access form of media has the issue of not being credible. Due to its imaginative nature, blogs can be written by anyone and be full of opinions which make the validity of the text questionable. This is perhaps the biggest issue for non-fiction authors, but for bloggers with only the intention of journaling or storytelling, this is not a concern. The biggest advantage of this digital medium is the accessibility and user friendly set up that ensures the availability of it all over.
I like how you compared a blog in its simplicity to a journal, the only idea that comes to mind with that is the fact that of course everyone in the world has access to your journal. Apart from the decision of having the blog set to private, do you think that people who are using these blogs would be hesitant to post such things on the internet? Or do you think that people that post them are open to other's ideas and input. Like you said, many of the things that are on the internet now can just be opinions of other people, not just fact.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comments on the accessibility of digital media. The internet is becoming more and more user-friendly and making things simpler for the average person. This all makes it so that the range of people your writing reaches is even greater. People definitely have to start being careful about finding information online because, as you said, lots of people post their opinions. I believe research is sometimes better done in print media instead of online for this reason.
ReplyDeleteI like the point you made about the authenticity being an issue nowadays on the internet. This is becoming a larger and larger issue. There are false rumors everyday about sports and celebrities that start because of some post on the internet. You really cannot trust everything you read. Even sites like Wikipedia are no longer being considered credible because so many users have access to the information. This being said the digital medium is still very beneficial and has a lot of uses.
ReplyDeleteI like how you pointed out that authors greatest concern would be the availability of their work and how the Internet allow for the writers to widen their network. While writers today still publish articles and hard copy books the often publish the same work through an online medium allowing for more readers. While you cannot trust everything you read online, I do agree that blogs are harmless. They are not meant to provide someone with factual evidence, but rather serve, like you said as a journal. Blogs allow for the writer to express their emotions and their story to the public.
ReplyDeleteI like how you looked at the accessibility of the blog and digital media in general. This is indeed very important for a writer to consider, not just the availability of the work they will be publishing, but the audience they will be publishing too, because different kinds of people go to different websites. Unless, of course, its Google, because nearly everyone uses Google. However there is a certain luster to a print book that the digital media will never have. No one logs onto a website and is awed by a 15 year old blog (I would say 200 years old but for obvious reasons I can’t), but when a 200 year old book is stumbled across, then it becomes something very special, as if the book were a window into the past.
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