Aperture

You hear quite a bit these days about the huge impact of new media. Blogs have apparently brought down the careers of successful politicians and media stars like Trent Lott and Dan Rather. They’re reflowing Internet traffic and hitting traditional newspapers in the pocketbook. Well, a few blogs are doing those things.

The vast majority, however—and I include myself in this category—are influencing and exciting…well, pretty much nobody. The triviality and vanity on which so much of the blogosphere rests was immortalized for a time on the t-shirt, “More people have read my shirt than your blog.” But the world of less-than-stellar academic blogging has somehow ground along uncommemorated under its own weight—until now. I send you, dear reader, away to this instant-classic of a post by communication scholar Henrik Örnebring.

A sample…

There is no shortage of pundits pontificating about the media, substituting anecdotes and case-of-one sociology for evidence. I wanted this to be different! I wanted this to be about the facts, what we actually know about media and journalism. And evidently, I wanted it to be boring.