The Christian Science Monitor has published a curious article on fears of blogging, which manages to present some anxieties about youth blogging without either criticizing or supporting them. The piece makes some standard "internet: threat or menace?" moves, like using "children" to mean all humans under 19, which enables some rhetorical slipperiness. And it contains some errors, such as assuming all blogs are public (doesn't Livejournal make a point about their closed option?). Paternalism is presented without comment:
some adults feel the stakes are too high to accept it as just another form or phase of self-expression
As Stephen Downes observes about a related story concerning blogs and social control,
You know, it's funny - I read so much about teachers trying to find ways to get students' attention, and when they find a device - a communication device - that captures students' attention, they want to ban it.
There's another interesting note on blogs and gender from that CSM article: "Perseus says the typical blogger continues to be a teenage girl." They mean hosted blogs only, but it's still a significant datapoint. Interesting how some blog critics underrate this aspect. Contrast with the narrow yet popular category/stereotype of the male warblogger. When will we gender blogs female?
(via Clickable Culture)
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