As you read this article, you’re probably either bored between classes and flipping through the print version of this newspaper, or you’re bored between classes reading it on The Varsity’s website. Regardless, you’re most likely aware that you’re reading an article in a newspaper. There’s something that feels formal and professional about reading a newspaper-something that makes your news, sports, culture, restaurant, reviews, et cetera, seem more authoritative. At least, that’s how many mainstream media outlets are hoping you feel.
By now, nearly everyone has heard about some study or another reporting that a growing percentage of people claim to get a growing percentage of their news from independent online bloggers. However, no matter how sizable an audience the internet media has, this is still a tiny fraction of the audience of mainstream media outlets. Mainstream outlets (in all media) have both the budget and established names to keep a much more diverse and widespread audience than blogs. The widespread availability of such media also simply makes them easier for people to access-you see newspaper headlines because newspapers are everywhere you go, while blogs have to be sought out.
Newspapers such as the Globe & Mail and the Toronto Star have the money, production facilities, name recognition, and advertising revenue needed to disseminate information to millions of people across the country. They offer a chance for uniformity that the wide variety of blogs does not. When you pick up your Toronto Star in the morning, you know thousands of your fellow students will be reading the same thing.
Lacking much of this grand sense of unity, blogs tend to be smaller and more individualistic, both in terms of their writing style and their distribution. Most blogs are written by a single person who wants to put in his or her two cents. They have a small focus, typically covering the individual’s own interests or those of their community. Typically, they are opinionated-with a style similar to the articles in the very Comment section you’re currently reading-and a far cry from the formal front section.
The importance of the rampant individualism found in blogs has not been lost on major media outlets. National newspapers have their top writers regularly publish extra content on their own personal blogs, and at December’s Liberal leadership convention, the CBC website hosted numerous blogs penned by their reporters on the floor. The message behind this convergence is clear-top media outlets want people to go to one place for both their blogging and mainstream news needs.
With all the mainstream involvement in blog media, one must ask how truly unique internet media is. Rick Salutin, an author and Globe & Mail columnist who teaches a media course at U of T, believes that blogs are “stunningly similar” to the mainstream media, in the sense that both exhibit a difficulty with thinking outside of the box. Not only are they usually written in a similar way (with some very notable exceptions), but the “blogosphere” tends to act as an echo chamber for stories published by mainstream news.
Although many blogs are starting to resemble mainstream news sources, at least in spirit, the influence goes both ways. The capacity for originality in form, delivery, and content inherent in blogs is proving attractive. Recently, city councilor Adam Giambrone approached a number of Toronto-based blogs, asking them to brainstorm ideas to overhaul the dated, clunky TTC website. The councilor’s choice to approach municipal blogs in particular acknowledged the growing influence that blogs have, as well as their ability to connect better with their readership, particularly regarding issues connected to the internet.
In their evolution from journal to news source, and in an attempt to gain some validity, it seems that many blogs are simply becoming specialized newspapers published through the internet instead of on paper. How else is it that newspaper columnists are able to write so easily for a blog? The medium is different, but the message seems to be the same.
Similar to newspapers, the larger blog audiences get, the less individualistic the blogs themselves become, since bloggers have to make sure to cater to their wider audience. Many blogs now have multiple contributors, and there are now conglomerated blog networks such as the Gothamist Network, which publishes regional blogs for numerous cities. This system resembles the one that governs news networks or newspaper chains, a fact that could lead to the problems of blog conglomeration like we currently have with mainstream media outlets.
Nowadays, I’m able to discuss stories from Torontoist, Gothamist’s Toronto-based regional blog, with many of my friends. Perhaps the day we will view blogs with that same sense of unity and legitimacy we hold so dear with the print world isn’t so far off.
