|
On January 15, 2009, the North Carolina bound US Airways Flight 1549 ditched
in the Hudson River near Manhattan, six minutes after taking off from LaGuardia
Airport, New York.
Just minutes after that, a small post appeared on a hugely popular micro-blogging
site, which said, Theres a plane in the Hudson. Im on the ferry going to pick
up the people.
The post (http://twitpic.com/135xa) had with it a big picture of the plane
floating on the river. This was followed by a tremendous traffic to the site,
which had millions of members reading the post and commenting on the picture.
One of the comments posted said, iPhone & Twitter: Good night and good luck
to old media. Many media reports covering this incident had referred to this
post as a first source.
This clearly defines the scope that the concept of blog, including micro-blogging,
has acquired over a decades time, and the influence it is now able to exert in
the opinion making of the authorities.
The blogosphere is now celebrating its tenth birthday of the word blog,
though the concept is much older.
The term weblog was coined by an American blogger, Jorn Barger on December
17, 1997, while its short form, blog, was coined by Peter Merholz, who
displayed the word weblog into the phrase we blog (pronounced as weeblog) in
the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in 1999. Shortly after, the word blog was
started being used as both a noun and a verb. Incidentally, making a verb out of
a noun is a method successfully implemented by many ad gurus.
In India, though the exact number of active bloggers is not known,
JuxtConsults India Online 2008 report estimated the number of Indian bloggers
to be at 3.2 mn.
Meanwhile, globally, over 130 mn people who literally live on digital world
are a near-reliable source to the mainstream media.
From Obama to Amitabh Bachchan to the lesser known citizens, everybody is
blogging to express themselves (at times without any discrimination and fear of
censorship) and break news. And our own Priyanka Chopra has over 30,000
followers in Twitter, mind it!
From reflections and musings to intimate family secretsall find expression
here. Just now it was read that Bollywood actor, Aamir Khan broke the news of
his wife Kiran Rao suffering a miscarriage, of course through his blog only.
While for some it is a mode to reach out to the people, for others, it is the
weapon. And then there are the kind of bloggers who shocked us with their blog
postings. Remember the compulsive confessor Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, who
revolutionized the Indian blogosphere with her postings, which later became the
raw material for a book?
Hers is not an isolated case, however. There are many young bloods who are
daring enough to express more and more (and some of them wash dirty linen in
public though!).
Still the political dimension of blogs cannot be overlooked. When many
autocratic governments revived the jagging act to muzzle the media which stood
for the freedom of expression, it was blogs which took up the cudgels for
democracy, leveraging the concept of citizen journalism in a more effective
sense.
But the recent past had seen countries like China, Iran, and Malaysia
resorting to a clampdowns on bloggers also. And the iron wall is spread to other
countries as well. In Iran, many protesters had logged into the social
networking media and blogosphere to express themselves against their ruler.
The recent cyber attack on Twitter was actually targeted at a Georgian
blogger, it was reported. The blogger said the attack was the act of Russian
hackers.
India also witnessed somewhat similar incidents. Television channel, NDTV had
allegedly sued an Indian blogger, named Chyetanya Kunte, from the Netherlands
over his blog about the news coverage of terrorist attack in Mumbai last year,
which contained a reference from Wikipedia to journalist, Barkha Dutt. NDTV had
reportedly threatened to sue the blogger and asked for an apology, which the
blogger promptly did.
Another such incident saw Google India being sued by Mumbai based Gremach
Infrastructure Equipments and Projects for hosting a series of articles on its
blogging site, which has been campaigning against the companys mines in
Mozambique. However, Google promptly said it has no control over blogs.
Actually the strength of blogging was clearly visible during the Mumbai
terror attack. It had really beaten the mainstream media in breaking the news in
seconds.
And then, there was this Fake IPL Player who amused and shocked the Indian
cricket fans when he exposed the inner drama of the Kolkata Knight Riders,
owned by actor, Shah Rukh Khan. But nowadays, nothing is heard of him. No more
dirty linen in the dressing room, maybe!
As any other medium, blogs also are experiencing the pains and ecstasies of
fighting for freedom of speech and expression. So, do you think that blogosphere
is gaining as much influence in the society as the mainstream media,
characterized by a perfect blend of news, opinions, libelous comments, and
litigations? Will it really give the old media a run for its money?
Saheer Karimbayil/CIOL
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
| 
Print
Comment
Email
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Twitter
