Prejudice handicaps the prejudiced
If you turned on a television and randomly selected a channel what might you find? A sports event, a Movie, a sitcom, a documentary, a news broadcast, a symphony performance? Actually you might find any of these or something altogether different.
But what if you judged television based only on sitcoms? You might overlook a documentary or a live performance which better suited your personal preferences. You might decide that all television is vapid and useless, simply because you made a judgement without consulting all the available information.
Many website owners are guilty of this same type of prejudice. They judge all forms of blogging based upon a limited survey of the abilities of blog technology.
Actually they are not completely to blame. There are bloggers who say that if you do not uses such and such a feature then you are not a blogger. There are media reporters who stereotype bloggers and make the same kind of comments that racists make against a person of another ethnic background concerning all bloggers. There are writers who say that a blog is only effective if it does such and such.
EXCUSE ME - but is a television program only effective if it gives the local news first? What if it is NOT a news broadcast? Does a sitcom need a color commentator or does a sports broadcast need a laugh track?
A real estate agent might use parts of the blogging technology, such as RSS feeds and image management simply as a way to add new listings to her website.
A scholar might use blogging software including the trackback feature and yet prevent comments from uninvited visitors.
Blogging is a medium and it is an evolving medium. For example, podcasting is a subset of the blogging medium as, also, are vblogs.
If you are writing a journal blog, you may be able to offer advice to other journal bloggers, but please do not impose your rules for effective journal blogging on people who are using the same software which you are using but for different purposes.
We need to learn from those who have shown us that objects in the physical world may be repurposed and come to realize that items in the software world may also be repurposed.
Prejudice causes you to be blind to possibilities and potentialities. Open your imagination and prepare to be surprised at what may still be done with a technology which is still evolving.
But what if you judged television based only on sitcoms? You might overlook a documentary or a live performance which better suited your personal preferences. You might decide that all television is vapid and useless, simply because you made a judgement without consulting all the available information.
Many website owners are guilty of this same type of prejudice. They judge all forms of blogging based upon a limited survey of the abilities of blog technology.
Actually they are not completely to blame. There are bloggers who say that if you do not uses such and such a feature then you are not a blogger. There are media reporters who stereotype bloggers and make the same kind of comments that racists make against a person of another ethnic background concerning all bloggers. There are writers who say that a blog is only effective if it does such and such.
EXCUSE ME - but is a television program only effective if it gives the local news first? What if it is NOT a news broadcast? Does a sitcom need a color commentator or does a sports broadcast need a laugh track?
A real estate agent might use parts of the blogging technology, such as RSS feeds and image management simply as a way to add new listings to her website.
A scholar might use blogging software including the trackback feature and yet prevent comments from uninvited visitors.
Blogging is a medium and it is an evolving medium. For example, podcasting is a subset of the blogging medium as, also, are vblogs.
If you are writing a journal blog, you may be able to offer advice to other journal bloggers, but please do not impose your rules for effective journal blogging on people who are using the same software which you are using but for different purposes.
We need to learn from those who have shown us that objects in the physical world may be repurposed and come to realize that items in the software world may also be repurposed.
Prejudice causes you to be blind to possibilities and potentialities. Open your imagination and prepare to be surprised at what may still be done with a technology which is still evolving.
posted by Shewmaker at 4:20 PM
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