[Air-l] Re: peace

[Eszter Hargittai]

Thanks Aldon, for bringing up the topic of blogs and pointing to some of the key blogs for those interested in the war.  From Internet researchers, I would hope to see more work on this particular use of the medium.  I know some projects are starting up (e.g. see http://www.onblogs.org ) but I think more work is needed. For one thing, I think it would be really helpful to get some data on how many Internet users out there even know what a blog is and how many read one/more, and then see how many actually maintain one.

To those of us who've gotten into blogging - reading and writing, or just reading them frequently - it sometimes seems the whole world is blogging.  But then I realize that most people don't even know what the word means and the friends who do only do so b/c I'm telling them about blog related info all the time.  (I also have a miniscule amount of survey data that suggest average users don't know what "Weblog" means.)

There's some work out there specifically about blogging and the war. I suspect Kara Kerwin (http://www.karakerwin.net ) of SUNY-Buffalo hasn't added to this thread b/c she's busy collecting data for her current project (we exchanged emails at 3am last night as she was very much in the midst of collecting data for her blog & war related research).  

There are many many blogs out there, many of them very interesting.  I'll just add two to the list both of which have lots of political commentary although not just about the war:

Alas, a blog at http://www.amptoons.com/blog
Body and Soul at http://bodyandsoul.blogspot.com

Once you're on a blog, you can follow links from there to find others.  Blogs have been an essential source of information for me during recent political events.  They point to interesting material that the mainstream media do not cover and they allow for conversations. In the past 24 hrs I've seen several bloggers post info on what's been happening in their area or what sources of info they're turning to these days, both issues that address David's questions. 

I highly recommend joining in on the blogging phenomenon, whether as a participant, as a researcher or both.  

Eszter

http://www.eszter.com | http://www.esztersblog.com


_______________________________________________
No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding.
Introducing My Way - http://www.myway.com