The Potential of Blogs and Moblogs

Blogs have become more influential than ever. In some ways, blogging has changed the way reporters work, and there are indications that bloggers may become an important part of the media in the future.

For example, blogs served or were used extensively as forums for discussion or political activities during the 2004 US Presidential Election. And as far as media was concerned, American bloggers were successful in placing themselves at the centre of the political dialogue by breaking stories and trying to be the watchdog for public interest.

That means bloggers have to a certain extent changed the political landscape of America amidst the mighty of mainstream media. It is interesting to see what impact this will have on Asian countries' future elections.

As for now, the impact of blogging is quite minimal in the election process in this region including Malaysia. But, the potential of blogging is there to be explored although there are some limitations to bloggers' rights to freedom of expression.

I think blogging is full challenges. Many bloggers are viewed as suspect while others are gaining in credibility and attention. The bloggers can say anything they wish, true or false, prejudicial or not. So, readers should be diligent in assessing what is written.

There is no doubt that some important stories have evolved from bloggers but these same stories could just as easily have come from accredited journalists. The basic principles of journalism -- to tell the truth and credible stories are always observed by accredited journalists but bloggers are not held to this standard and generally, the public are gullible enough to accept what is posted or printed without the challenge of critical thinking.

As for moblogs or mobile phone logs that consist of photos taken primarily with mobile camera phones and posted on the internet, it helps a lot in transmitting pictures without a computer. For example, the bloggers can post personal content from mobile camera phones directly to websites for sharing with friends and the public.

In other words, if you are a reporter covering certain emergencency events such as disasters, you can still use photos taken from a mobile camera phone as a last resort (because of poor quality) and post on the internet. To me, although moblog is not likely to become a mainstream activity for now, it is an interesting development as far as the immediacy of the technology is concerned.