Ayoon Wa Azan (Blogs-1)
Jihad el-Khazen Al-Hayat - 04/01/06//
Blogs represent the other, alternative, or new press. On this issue I have written many articles early summer. Now, as winter sets in, I cannot but retackle it. Like the "child prodigy" we hear of from time to time, these blogs have swiftly mushroomed shortly after being created.
Blogs and bloggers have constantly interested me, as I am addicted to reading American and British papers in the morning. To my surprise, some dailies have either created blogs of their own or have, by contrast, adopted some others then offered them to their readers as an additional service. Yet, we all know that blogs have remarkably proliferated both, in number and influence.
Being versed in English, I will ponder first on the American and British blogs. Indeed, they constitute a model for our blogs so long as we, the Arabs, keep on blindly dogging and imitating others. Yet, I do not downplay, by any chance, the French, German, and Japanese blogs. In this regard, it is worth mentioning that the French blogs may be even partially responsible for the Suburbs Revolution.
With the American blogs, I cannot but offer the reader some titles and references. There are millions of such blogs that attract billions of readers - a figure that increases by thousands every week, if not every day. So, the titles I will provide will concern issues of interest for the Arab reader.
In the United States, the website, "The Truth Laid Bear," monitors the political blogs. Of every 10 sites, eight represent the US right, such as "InstaPundit" for the law professor, Glenn Reynolds, "Power Line" for three lawyers, "Michellemalkin" named after a rightist commentator, "Free Republic" for right-wing activists, and "Little Green Footballs," a pro-Israeli right site.
In fact, the said five blogs are but a duplicate model of hundreds of thousands of such blogs. In parallel appears the left-leaning site, "Daily Kos," deemed by far the most popular among all blogs of different orientations.
The intertwined right blogs exchange information, while relying on old right-wing sites. Traditional commentators too depend on blogs, which successfully attack the traditional media. For instance, these influential blogs campaigned against "60 minutes," the CBS show that dealt with Bush's National Guard service. Hence, the anchor, Dan Rather, was forced to retire, while others had to resign. Likewise, Eason Jordan, the CNN president was sacked a year ago after he claimed in Davos that the US troops deliberately killed journalists. Similarly, Farnaz Fassihi, "The Wall Street Journal" correspondent in Baghdad, was targeted when she sent her friends an e-mail describing therein the deteriorating security situation in Baghdad. Consequently, she took a previously scheduled vacation then resumed work after some time.
Yet, titles remain incomplete if we do not focus on the blogs of extremist Christian groups, which, in turn, complement the extremist political blogs. In this context, we refer to Hugh Hewitt, a law professor and Nixon Library's former executive director. He writes now for the online "Daily Standard," the tribune of Neocons, and asserts that his vocation is to propagate Christianity.
In turn, the religious or extremist Christian blogs have remarkably swarmed. In this respect, Mariah Blake said in "Columbia Journalism Review" (May/June) that the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), home to Pat Robertson's "700 Club," hired one thousand workers in three US cities and different foreign countries. As we all know, this station has millions of listeners.
In fact, the religious blogs are the most numerous in the United States after their political and musical counterparts. For more details, the reader can log on to Technocrati (technocrati.com), a website allowing people to list their blogs. Technocrati includes 21.5 million blogs in its searchable database. The blogger can also resort to a free-based service like Typepad (typepad.com). Though this may cost him $5 per month, he can, nonetheless, gain access to the site he wants from his mobile phone anywhere across the globe. As for "Google," it helps initiate a blog "through three easy steps."
For more detailed and accurate information, the interested reader can skim the two articles Michael Massing has published in "New York Review of Books" on December 1st then in the 2nd issue respectively. But if interested by the British blogs I will concisely address, the reader can refer to a detailed survey published by Oliver Burkeman in The Guardian Supplement on November 17, 2005.
In truth, the British blogs are not as influential as the American ones. However, they replace and challenge the traditional press, thus attracting politicians or senior commentators.
Furthermore, the British blogs were unleashed after 9/11 attacks when uncertainty prompted many to search for other news sources away from traditional media. However, parties often disagree over the importance of the British blogs. For instance, Oliver Kamm perceives them as a parasite living on the traditional mass media, while "Samizdata" (Adriana Cronin) blog believes in a blog-based future.
In my view, blogs and bloggers will be part of the future, for their influence can no longer be denied. Alas, I cannot go back to the pre-1997 period. At that time, Jorn Barger, a computer programmer, began posting controversial daily comments on his website, notably his views on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The name was initially coined from the two words, web and log, later merged into weblog then shortened to blog. This word was also included in the English dictionary as a noun and verb along with other invented and adapted terms. In these articles, I will use the terms blog, blogs, and bloggers for the non-Arabs and logs for the Arabs.
I hope the reader will read all my articles, which, I promise, will be in English too. They will be also coupled with references for the most important Arab and foreign blogs. Besides, the reader can immediately send me his comments. But I will only answer them when I finish publishing all my relevant articles.
http://www.j-khazen.blogspot.com/
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