The undeniable phenomenon of blogging

Source: www.tonisant.com/blog/pix/blogosphere8.jpg

Blogging is no longer a foreign word in this Internet era. Everyone is talking about it, reading it and doing it. In 2006, Technorati tracked more than 35.3 million blogs - making that 1.2 million blog posts everyday with an average of 50,000 per hour (Hughes 2006)! By 2008, there are 133 million blogs listed by Technorati (Winn 2009). The blogosphere is clearly growing and it is really, really large.

The trends in the blogosphere differ from country to country because of the social cognitive perspectives. For instance, in Europe, bloggers are free to write whatever they want without any restrictions but in China, the government controls the Internet. Therefore, Chinese bloggers usually blog in a collective dimension (Liu 2007, p. 4; Liu & Larose 2008, p. 4). As for Malaysia, Ooi (2007, p. 38) found that bloggers usually write about their personal interests and hobbies. Nonetheless, in Europe, Asia and Malaysia, personal blogs seem to be more prevalent than other types of blogs.

Blogging has many benefits to the community. In the Malaysian context, blogging is a way of sharing and gaining knowledge (McRea 2009). For example, although Ooi (2007, p. 38) mentioned that "political blogs are only a small part of the blogging landscape in Malaysia", Ramadass (2006) found in a study Blogging Asia: A Windows Live Report, 20% Malaysians listed political blogs as their favourite. This shows that through political blogs, Malaysians are able to voice their opinions and share information about the political arena that is not portrayed by the mainstream media.



References:

Hughes, R 2006, 'Current size of the blogosphere', Open2Learn-Open Learning in Higher Education, 17 April, viewed 7 November 2009, <http://open2learn.blogspot.com/2006/04/current-size-of-blogosphere-april-2006.html>.

Liu, X 2007, 'A personalized media in a collectivism country: Chinese bloggers perceptions of blogging self-efficacy, outcome expectations and i-anxiety', in International Communication Association Annual Meeting, pp. 1-27.

Liu, X & Larose, R 2008, 'A social cognitive perspective on blogging: comparing the U.S. and China', in International Communication Association Annual Meeting, pp. 1-35.

McRea, B 2009, 'Radical blogging-uses and benefits', Mcreasite.com, viewed 7 November 2009, <http://www.mcreasite.com/blog/1313/radical-blogging-uses-and-benefits/> .

Ooi, YM 2007, 'Blogging thrives in Malaysia', Communication World, viewed 7 November 2009, <http://www.zenguide.co.uk/2007/11/blogging-thrives-in-malaysia/> .

Ramadass, V 2006, ‘Blogging phenomenon sweeps Asia’, 28 November, Lowyat.NET, viewed 7 November 2009, <http://www.lowyat.net/v2/latest/blogging-phenomenon-sweeps-asia-4.html>.

Winn, P 2009, 'State of the blogosphere: Introduction', Technorati, 21 August, viewed 7 November 2009, <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-introduction/> .