Proposal

Mike Padula (padula@tc.cornell.edu)
S&TS 349
Final Paper (Proposal)

Blogs as Mass Media

Blogs (weblogs) are a relatively recent innovation built on a relatively new media technology, the World Wide Web. Blogs have become particularly popular in certain circles only very recently. Microsoft has launched a barrage of blogs usually authored by authoritative personalities (that work at or are strongly affiliated with Microsoft) in the software development world. A few of the aims behind this could be to communicate facts about Microsoft technology, to foster innovation using Microsoft technology, and to build communities around Microsoft employee’s personalities and Microsoft’s technology. All these aims underline the fundamental aim which is to foster Microsoft’s economic growth. Some questions to examine could be:
• Can Blogs (as a form of mass media communication) communicate facts?
• How could a blog foster innovation in software development?
• Can a community really be built through a blog based on a single personality?
• Can a collection of blogs (based on a single personality) build a community?
• How do the technological limitations of a blog help or hinder (given the goals)?

The above questions are intended to challenge the idea that a blog can achieve the goals as I’ve outlined (conveying facts, fostering innovation, building community). In addition, how do they characteristics of a blog aid or hinder the chances of achieving specific goals? For example, it’s very difficult to read past postings on a blog beyond a month or two. As a consequence, it may be nearly impossible to identify authoritative contributors beyond the author. How does that affect the goal of conveying facts? Is it possible to foster innovation when you can’t determine the validity of a contributors post? Blogs are rigidly structured around time. Posts are unavoidably ordered from most recent to least recent. Is the most recent information always the most relevant? Is the most innovative or most thoroughly discussed information always the most recent? All these questions touch the surface of many issues commonly discussed in terms of Communication and Mass Media. Building Communities online is a very vaguely defined process. Indeed, the term community is defined very differently by different researchers depending on the context. The project would cast a critical eye on the use of blogs as a form of mass media given the goals specified. The discussion and conclusions would take the form of a blog, hosted on the World Wide Web, and would remain accessible as long as necessary.