Lasica, J. (2003): Blogs and Journalism Need Each Other (Nieman Reports, Fall 2003)

My question: How does Lasica places the Weblogs in the great context of news and journalism? And how great is their importance?

Answer: Lasica sees Blogs not as a competitor to other kind of news in the realm of journalism. He stresses the point that the distinction whether they are journalism or not is not the goal of his article: “We need, then, to stop looking at this as a binary, either-ort-choice. We need to move beyond the increasingly stale debate of whether blogging is or isn’t journalism and celebrate Weblogs’ place in the media ecossystem” (p.73). This statement shows that a Lasica sees Blogs as something radically new, not simply comparable to the form of traditional journalism. It is not a new kind of journalism, but a way with a mostly non-professional background, a favour for niche-themes and written only caused by ideological and not economic reasons. So it’s nothing radical new (because they appeared a lots of independent newspapers or tv-stations  before, but new technology offers now more possibilities to spread and guarantee a greater public awareness). Lasica stresses the point that it is nothing in opposition to traditional journalism because their underlying common idea is information and they share the same “rules”: “The conventions of journalism  - accuracy, credibility, trustworthiness and being straight up with your readers – are guideposts that any good blogger engrave on her wall” (p.73). In this sense the importance of blogs is limited, they can people make aware that a lots of other stories and meanings of happenings exist outside the world of tradition journalism, but in the end they are only just one new tool in the great realm of journalism. They are an addition and at the end nothing more or less than a supplement: “Blogs won’t replace traditional news media, but they will supplement them I important ways” (p.74). 

Gillmore, Dan (2003): Moving Toward Participatory Journalism (Nieman Reports, Fall 2003)

My question: Gillmore in comparison to Lasica, is more enthusiastic about the importance and power of journalistic blogs in the general development of news. He sees a bright future for this new way of journalim, but what  is the weak uncertain point in his argumentation?

Answer: The problem I see in the vision of Gillmore is that he doesn’t take the role of the user into the account. His text is written from his point of view, as a journalist seeing the new opportunities for trustworthiness, contact to the readers and offering “forgotten” stories and approaches. As he stresses it, this model of Blogs is a new form of a more communicative way of journalism:  “In an era when the public has a pervasive distrust of journalists, listening strikes me as a good way to improve our relationship with the audience” (p.80). In the sense of Gillmore Blogs offer all these qualities, and he sketches an optimistic vision of this new kind of journalism: “I’m optimistic however, largely because the technology will be difficult to control and because people like to tell stories” (p.80). And that  is the importance and simultaneously the weakness of his whole argumentation. It’s maybe true that people like to tell stories, but do they also like to listen to stories. In this point Gillmores argumentation is only one side of the coin. Because of the existing possibilities to hear a lot of different stories and independent voices it is not automatically said that people would prefer these new form of journalism instead of tradition tv- or newspaper-journalism. To create a whole new way of journalism (and not just an supplement as stated by Lasica) people who not just write weblogs are needed, but also people who want to read all this stuff, because without a readership who accepts this it is to my mind not a new journalistic form but only a simple uncontrolled output of stories and opinions whirring through the great endless cyberspace without echoes and importance.

Middelaar, Luuk van (2003):  On Logos and Grassroots: The Anti-Globalisation Movement Between Morals, Economics and Politics

(see http://www.cne.org/pub_pdf/032003_luuk_grassroots.pdf)

My question: On which “levels” (argumentation, ideology, definition etc.) are laying the basic weaknesses of the anti-globalisation movement, according to van Middelaar?

Answer: One of the basic problems  van Middelaar sees in the whole context is the question of defining “globalisation”. This term causes a lots of problems and misunderstandings, because anti-globalisation movements don’t criticise the fact that cultural values spread across the world or boundaries disappear, but just only globalisation activities which touches economical aspects. As van Middelaar points it out, the term isn’t very well chosen and more confusing, because it contains a contradiction in itself. Without globalisational efforts (Internet, global community etc.), anti-globalisation development in this form wouldn’t exist, people wouldn’t meet and there wouldn’t exist a public awareness of organisations such as attac. This weakness is definition, which contains a contradiction causes a lot more problematic points. But focusing on just the economic side of the problems causes a lot of new problems instead. The anti-globalisation movement which criticises  capitalism and economic global influences is based on the same principles: “There is no way out of the world of money, not even for the people who think they’re fighting against it” (p.20). So the whole general argumentation against capitalistic development contains a fundamental contradiction within itself. So it came as no surprise that Klein’s book against brands paradoxically became a kind of brand itself. But the problems of this movement are not only lying on the levels of definition and ideology, but also (caused by the weaknesses on the two levels before) on the level of argumentation. Because the focus on ideology is not well chosen and full of contradictions it prevents a clear and logic argumentation, which acknowledges both sides of the problem. So, as van Middelaar points it out, the way of argumentation of the anti-globalisation approaches are always polemic and short-sighted in itself: “But all to often in ‘the Movement’ , moral indignation springing from a prima facie division in rich and poor takes place of athorough analysis of the problem” (p.36). So this weaknesses and contradictions on this three levels are the main problems of the whole development.  

Warde, Alan (2002): Production, consumption and ‘cultural economy’ In: du Gay, Paul / Pryke, Michael (2002): Cultural economy: Cultural analysis and commercial life. Sage Publications, London / Thousand Oaks / New Dehli, p. 185-200

My question: What is according to Warde the problem in reflecting the aesthetic component of consumption?

Answer: The aesthetic component is brought into discussion by the theory of Celia Lury in her book Consumer Culture (1996): Lury states that there are symbolic and cultural aspects of consumption which has leaded to a ‘stylization of consumption’. This aesthetic quality is of great importance for Lury’s whole understanding of consumption: “It is this, stylization and aestheticization , and not just the existence of consumer ethic or attitude, that characterizes consumer culture” (p.192). In the distinction, Warde opens up through the use of Williams threefold use of the term ‘culture’, Lury uses the third approach (culture (iii)), in the form of a cultural culture. The importance of this “cultural” influence is basically for Lury: “Thus, consumer culture is defined by aestheticization and stylization,a s generated through ‘the art-culture system’, and is illustrated by the dual movement of the increase of cultural goods produced in the economy and of economic forces operating on culture” (p.192). According to the opinion of Warde this is an overestimation of the aesthetic influence on consumption, because of two basic reasons. The first argument is, that  consumption behaviour is driven more than by just aesthetic considerations, you simply need consumption of basic goods. The second argument Warde uses is that consumption fulfils the role of work as of passive entertainment. Consumption is nothing special aesthetic: “A good deal of consumption is characterized less by its meaningfulness than by its taken-for-granted ordinariness” (p.193).