Role Of Blogs Research Articles

Blogging as an Integrative Technology to Improve Language Proficiency: An Investigative Study Among Engineering Students in India

Technology has become an inevitable part of learning these days and the popularity of blogs and web forums is increasing exponentially. The purpose of blogging is to encourage discussions on a particular topic or concept, thereby throwing more light on the point of discussion. These discussions generally focus on knowledge sharing and acquiring, but in a way, they help the participants and the readers to enhance their language skills like listening, reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary both directly and indirectly. The present study consolidates the opinions of the researcher about the use of blogs as educational technology and the opinions of the learners about the role of blogs in their language learning aspects. The result shows that blogs have a considerable impact on one’s language proficiency.

Analysis on the Structure and Purposes of Travel Blog Posts

Travel blogs have become a huge online platform used as a benchmark for Internet users to plan holiday itineraries, consider choices, and finalize travel-related purchase decisions. As popular travel blogs are often visited by online readers globally, there might be a shift in the purposes for writing travel blogs nowadays compared to traditional blog posts. Previous studies discussed the characteristics of blogs as a communicative platform; however, discussion on language features and blog structures used to achieve certain purposes of travel blogs is still scarce. This study, hence, aimed to evaluate the text structure and language function employed in popular travel blogs to determine their overall purposes. Eighteen posts were selected from six popular travel blogs and analyzed qualitatively by using Pascual’s (2018) blog structure moves and Jakobson’s (1960) language function framework. The findings showed that the travel blog posts consisted of four moves: situational, descriptive, closure, and invitational moves and that most of the moves mainly employed referential and emotive functions. Hence, the main purposes were to provide information on travel destinations and to express the bloggers’ feelings towards their travel experiences. The findings implied that the purposes of popular travel blog posts nowadays are related to the role of blogs as a source of information and the role of travel bloggers as social influencers in the online community.

Blogs as Channels for Disseminating Health Technology Innovations.

ObjectivesThe objective of this study was to describe the features of health informatics blogs on the Internet.MethodsA search was conducted in August, 2016 using the search engine, Google, and key words: ‘mobile health blog,’ ‘telehealth/telemedicine blog,’ ‘Electronic Health Record blog,’ ‘personalized health record blog,’ ‘population health decision support system blog,’ and ‘public/population health dashboard blog.’ The first 24 blogs resulting from each key word search were recorded, generating 144 blogs. A total of 109 unique blogs resulted after removing duplicates and non-functional sites.ResultsBlogs with ‘.com’ extensions were most prevalent (72%, n = 79). More than half of the blogs (79%, n = 86) were created by industries. Mobile health (88%, n = 96), telehealth (82%, n = 89), and health IT (78%, n = 85) were the predominant topics covered. Health providers (44%, n = 48), industries (33%, n = 36), patients/consumers (25%, n = 27) and payers/insurance providers (19%, n = 21) constituted the most common target audience. Blogs catering to payers commonly used ‘.org’ extension (n = 10 out of 21), compared to ‘.com’ (n = 7) or ‘.gov’ (n = 2) (p < 0.0001). Significant differences were also observed by topics covered health IT (p = 0.007), subscription (p = 0.048) and LinkedIn social media (p = 0.019) across the website extensions.ConclusionsFurther research is needed to examine the use of blogs as channels of communication of best evidence in health informatics research among diverse stakeholders. The role of blogs as policy informatics tools need to be evaluated in order for stakeholders to collaborate, coordinate and share opportunities and challenges of various public health programs and policies.

Joining the ‘literacy club’: when reading meets blogging

This article reports on a one-year EFL extensive reading programme involving blogging, and documents its effects on learners’ literacy growth evaluated by their writing fluency (for example the number of words) and depth of reading (for example ideas reflected in the posts). While a great deal of research suggests that reading is the underlying cause of literacy growth, it is important to consider the role of blogging, a crucial mediation for reading in this programme. Results reporting the contribution and effect of blogging showed that readers wrote more in the second semester than the first and expressed more well-developed ideas as the extensive reading programme progressed. Most important of all, they had the chance to enjoy reading and writing for ‘real’ purposes, have their own voices heard, and gain support in this ‘literacy club’. Finally, most considered blogging useful in helping them read and write better.

Estratégia de relacionamento entre empresas e &lt;i&gt;bloggers&lt;/i&gt;: o caso do setor da cosmética

Web 2.0 is an environment with new opportunities and challenges for businesses. This paper aims to discuss the role of blogs for companies and how companies can approach the bloggers, taking them as co-producers of value to the brand. This research uses a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory approach. The research method used was the case study, which was conducted in two companies in the cosmetics industry. The “Management Fashion Theory” was used to analyze the cases. The paper suggests that blog is a management fashion, but the approximation of brands to bloggers can bring value to the company if there is the possibility of building a win-win relationship. The paper is useful for companies as it indicates practices for a partnership between brands and bloggers.

Blogs as an Alternative Public Sphere: The Role of Blogs, Mainstream Media, and TV in Russia's Media Ecology

Applying a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, we investigate whether Russian blogs represent an alternative public sphere distinct from web-based Russian government information sources and the mainstream media. Based on data collected over a one-year period (December 2010 through December 2011) from thousands of Russian political blogs and other media sources, we compare the cosine similarity of the text from blogs, mainstream media, major TV channels, and official government websites. We find that, when discussing a selected set of major political and news topics popular during the year, blogs are consistently the least similar to government sources compared to TV and the mainstream media. We also find that the text of mainstream media outlets in Russia (primarily traditional and web-native newspapers) are more similar to government sources than one would expect given the greater editorial and financial independence of those media outlets, at least compared to largely state-controlled national TV stations. We conclude that blogs provide an alternative public sphere: a space for civic discussion and organization that differs significantly from that provided by the mainstream media, TV, and government.

Using Blogs: authentic material and ranking quality for SLA

&lt;p&gt;Exposure real life language experiences forms an integral part of the acquisition process. Authentic materials – those derived from the culture of the target language rather than specially produced for language learners – increase the relevance of the learning experience by reusing texts taken directly from the target culture. Web 2.0 technologies increase opportunities for bringing authentic materials into formal language learning environments by allowing material to be collected, reused and shared amongst language teachers and learners. This paper aims to look at the role of blogs in facilitating the use of authentic material by English language teachers and learners and the impact of the most authoritative blogs in the wider Web and in Social Media.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To reach this objective, the blog ranking site Technorati was used to select the most popular blogs for English language learners and teachers and each blog was analysed according to the authenticity of the cultural material used for language learning. The analysis reveals that 100% of the material on 56.25% of the blogs selected was authentic material and over 70% of the material on a further 35.3% of blogs was authentic.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, the impact of these blogs in the wider Web and Social Media was measured in order to draw some conclusions regarding the role of language learning blogs outside the world of blogging and the communities they serve and provide an image of the relationship between blogs and bloggers, the Web and Social Media.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The results show an inherent bias within Web 2.0 technologies towards providing contemporary authentic material for language learning – the technology itself encourages its use – and that sometimes blogs can have an impact beyond their communities through the Web and Social Media.&lt;/p&gt;

User generated content in the Israeli online journalism landscape

The paper provides a review of research on user generated content in the Israeli online journalism landscape. Findings reveal that scholarly attention has been focused primarily on user comments, with initial insight on the role of blogs and citizen journalism in the Israeli journalism landscape. Methodologically, research is derived primarily from interviews with newsroom staff and case study content analyses. The review suggests that future research should complement current data with user based inquiry about orientations and use of UGC, and examine the role of Israeli culture in the practice of UGC.

Typing Politics: The Role of Blogs in American Politics. By Richard Davis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 256p. $99.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

Typing Politics: The Role of Blogs in American Politics. By Richard Davis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 256p. $99.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

‘Economics with Training Wheels’: Using Blogs in Teaching and Assessing Introductory Economics

Blogs provide a dynamic interactive medium for online discussion, consistent with communal constructivist pedagogy. This paper explores the use of blogs in the teaching and assessment of a small (40-60 students) introductory economics paper. The role of blogs as a teaching, learning and assessment tool are discussed. Using qualitative and quantitative data collected across four semesters, students’ participation in the blog assessment is found to be associated with student ability, gender, and whether they are distance learners. Importantly, students with past economics experience do not appear to crowd out novice economics students. Student performance in tests and examinations does not appear to be associated with blog participation after controlling for student ability. However, students generally report overall positive experiences with the blog assessment.

Typing politics: the role of blogs in American politics

Typing politics: the role of blogs in American politics

LESS REVOLUTIONARY THAN IT SEEMS - Richard Davis: Typing Politics: The Role of Blogs in American Politics (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. 198. $19.95, paper.) - Matthew Hindman: The Myth of Digital Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. Pp. 154. $22.95, paper.)

LESS REVOLUTIONARY THAN IT SEEMS - Richard Davis: Typing Politics: The Role of Blogs in American Politics (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. 198. 22.95, paper.) - Volume 72 Issue 1

Lead Users and Early Adopters on the Web: The Role of New Technology Product Blogs*

Lead users and early adopters are often blogging or reading and commenting on blogs. Blogs, which are characterized by postings, links, and readers' comments, create a virtual “community” of blogger and readers. Members self-select, and then the community gels around a theme or idea, product, industry, hobby, or any other subject. While community creation is one chief function of blogs, the information-sharing, entertainment, or self- or value-expressive functions are also important. Thus, new product development (NPD) managers can glean a great deal of information about what these audiences are thinking. The significance of blogging to NPD managers also lies in the shift of focus from being separate from to being immersed in these communities. Immersion enhances the potential of close relationships, sharing experiences, and co-creating value with blogging communities through innovation. The focus of the study is on the roles of blogs in new product development, and an exploratory content analysis of new technology product blog postings is described. The goal was to examine what blogs actually say (and don't say) and to classify content based on the core elements of the marketing mix: product (including attributes and service aspects); price (including price comparisons); channel; and promotion. The bulk of the content was in the product category: for example, features (mentioned by 87.14%); overall evaluations (52.86%); performance (28.57%); compatibility (27.14%); ease of use (20%); and style (17.14%). About half discussed price, and about half discussed some channel aspect. The content is analyzed in detail, and implications for NPD mangers are discussed. People voluntarily join new product blogging communities, and if the manager of that product is not “present” (at least as an observer of this “straw poll”) an entire new product marketing agenda can be set by the community. Implicitly or explicitly, blogs can position the value proposition of the product in a prime target audience's mind. Such positioning could be advantageous or catastrophic as far as the NPD manager is concerned.

News blogs: strengthening democracy through conflict prevention

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to offer greater insight in the role of blogs in the creation of a more transparent news media system and a more democratic political reality.Design/methodology/approachFraming theory is employed as a conceptual tool to re‐interpret existing evidence of the performance of news blogs during situations of political conflict and war. A theoretical analysis is developed setting out the premises of the challenge that blogs can pose to the framing of conflict by mainstream media. The analysis incorporates empirical examples of reporting conflict and war in the blogosphere. Finally, with the aid of international relations theories, the role of blogs is evaluated in terms of the political transparency and accountability they could offer during conflict and war.FindingsThe analysis demonstrated that by promoting alternative and progressive voices, blogs have the capacity to shift the power over framing away from the usual sources in the news reporting of political conflict and turn the media system into a greater constraining factor for governments than even before.Originality/valueThe paper presents a novel approach to the interaction between blogs and mainstream media by combining theories from the disciplines of communications and international relations. The analysis generated a hypothesis that can be empirically assessed with the investigation of the framing output of influential news blogs and mainstream news media during political conflict and war.

Novos meios de memória: livros e leitura na época dos weblogs

A memória é construída a partir do presente por uma tensão entre duas ações: lembrar e esquecer, e está sempre dialogando com os objetos que recortamos para analisar a condição do conhecimento na contemporaneidade. O texto deste artigo está organizado em três partes. Na primeira parte, enfrentamos o objeto “livro”, seu surgimento na sociedade, sua importância para a transmissão dos saberes, o poder de controle de atitudes, como os homens–memórias criados por Bradbury em Fahrenheit 451 e seu possível ocaso face às tecnologias de suporte da informação. A segunda parte desatrela a ação de ler de seu suporte mais tradicional e trata a “leitura” como objeto independente, sugerindo-se, a partir das reflexões de Regina Zilberman, Alberto Manguel e Paulo Freire que somos constituídos para ler o mundo, não importam os mecanismos que nos valemos para alcançar esse objetivo. Na terceira e última parte, apresentamos alguns indicadores de modos possíveis de existência de meios de memória no ambiente virtual, com comentários sobre o papel dos blogs e websites em relação à escrita firmada em papel.

No place for news in social network web sites?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which the news is discussed in social network web sites.Design/methodology/approachThis article reports a quantitative analysis of the text of 26,953 Windows Live Spaces from September 2006 to February 2007 using a heuristic designed to detect news discussions. In addition, a comparative link and page analysis of 20 popular general social network environments (e.g. MySpace and Facebook) and 11 popular blog environments (e.g. Typepad and Blogger) is presented.FindingsThe text analysis suggests that news plays little role in most Windows Live Spaces, but the link and page analysis suggests that the key difference is less between social network environments and blog environments than between free standardised environments (e.g. MySpace and Blogger) and professional or semi‐professional blogs, with the former tending to carry relatively little news‐related content.Research limitations/implicationsThe methods used are exploratory rather than giving definitive conclusions.Practical implicationsThose interested in public reactions to the news should focus on blogs and blog‐like social network sites rather than general social network sites, and should expect only a tiny proportion of the discussions to be news‐related.Originality/valueAlthough the role of blogs in reporting, discussing and making the news has been analysed frequently, this is the first study about the extent to which general social networking sites engage with (mass media) news.

New Mediated Deliberation: Blog and Press Coverage of the Alito Nomination

This study explores the implications of political weblogs for theories of mediated public deliberation. Guided by contemporary questions surrounding the internet and the public sphere, we examine blog and newspaper coverage of the nomination and confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court of Samuel Alito with an eye toward further development of theories of mass deliberation. Specifically, we pursue questions concerning volume of coverage, ideological polarization, and interactive features in the blogosphere, using newspaper coverage as a point of reference. Data come from content analyses of newspaper stories mentioning Alito in the headline or lead paragraphs from the initial nomination announcement through final confirmation, as well as archival impressions of blog posts featuring hyperlinks to the newspaper stories. Our analysis suggests that blogs may enhance as well as complicate processes of mediated deliberation. We conclude by discussing empirical and conceptual implications of these findings for future research on the role of blogs in the contemporary public sphere.

Megaphones to the Internet and the World: The Role of Blogs in Corporate Communications

Corporations can create blogging guidelines, implement Web log monitoring-and-analysis programs, and launch blogs to capitalize upon this new medium of communication. During the next five years, blogging will not render the traditional tools of communication obsolete nor will it usher in a new era of corporate communications; however, it will become a permanent, fully integrated, and vital part of the media landscape. Students, academics, and practitioners interested in corporate communications and new media may find this article useful.

BLOGS AND JOURNALISTIC AUTHORITY

This paper asserts that the role of blogs cannot be adequately understood without examining the established media context in which they appear. Blogs operate along side, in conjunction with, and in opposition to established vehicles for political information, which creates tension among journalists seeking to preserve their authority. As a site to observe the blog-traditional journalism relationship, this article examines the reaction by journalists and others to blogs’ role in US Election Day 2004 coverage. Much of the attention by journalists focuses on assessing the well-publicized decision by some blogs to release incomplete exit polls erroneously predicting a victory for Democratic candidate John Kerry. This discourse works to make sense of the status and credibility of blogs while simultaneously allowing journalists to negotiate their role as authoritative providers of political news. Ultimately, the discourse underlines the dynamism of news in a contemporary media environment marked by new forms of complexity and competitiveness.

Blogging as a Tool: Innovative Approaches to Information Access

PurposeTo describe new features and functionality of blogging and share a range of applications in the library environment.Design/methodology/approachDemonstrates the range of applications and suggests that this is a new information medium that is likely to have a keen presence for a long while as more users engage in the related activities and depend on Blogs and RSS for their sources of information.FindingsImplementations in ways librarians never expected are now becoming common and the role of blogging and the challenges associated with tracking content on blogs remains of great interest. The wide spectrum of information sources and functionality of blogs proves to be ever‐changing.Originality/valueProvides library community new ideas in how to implement blogs that will serve users in creative, positive and meaningful ways.