Whether for fashion, news or random thoughts, blogging has become an increasingly popular way to exchange information and ideas. However, its usefulness ultimately depends on how bloggers approach the process, students and professors said.’
‘A blog is a medium of communication, like smoke signals, pen and paper, or videotape,’ College of Communication professor Christopher Daly said.’ ‘By itself, a blog is neither good nor bad. It all depends on how it is used.”
Daly regularly updates his blog, journalismprofessor.com. He also requires all his students to create their own blogs using WordPress.’
‘For a lot of students, once they start blogging, there’s no turning back,’ he said.’ ‘
The idea of blogging started in the early 1990s after the birth of Internet, according to blogger.com. However, it didn’t grow in popularity until 1999 when Blogger and Pitas, free blog-creation website services, were created.’
At BU, students and faculty said they take advantage of newer blog host sites, with the majority using websites such as BlogSpot and WordPress. Besides helping with layout, fonts, and graphics, the websites allow bloggers to track the number of hits their blog receives every day and their most popular posts.’
Professor Fred Bayles, director of the BU Statehouse Program, said blogging must be used correctly in order to effectively communicate the most important news.
‘If blogging, and I don’t think it will, pushes well reported stories out of the way then it’s a bad thing,’ he said. ‘If it allows reporters to get into more details about things then that has some value.”
Bayles said students at the BU Statehouse Program write informative blogs regarding government and politics for about 20 different news organizations in the state.
Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore is one of the most prominent BU bloggers, updating about topics ranging from President Obama’s election to upcoming coffee and conversation meeting topics.’ ‘
Inspired by Elmore, students in the Dean of Students office said they started their own blog called ‘FYI Student Blog’ to inform students about what’s going on at BU.’
‘He [Elmore] doesn’t get to blog nearly as enough as he or we would like,’ the students said in their first blog entry on May 4. ‘So we took matters into our own hands, and started the FYI Student Blog.”
Other students said they have a specific focus when blogging.’
COM freshman Ryan Piccirillo said he uses his blog as a sort of diary, blogging about random observations and thoughts.’
‘I use my blog to mock social absurdities, report funny tid-bits of human experience I witness and/or propagate, and to chronicle my life at BU,’ he said.’ ‘
COM sophomore Karen Fabella said she uses her blog to further her interest in fashion. She has been blogging since last December and receives around 70 to 100 hits per update, she said.’
Some students said they simply enjoy reading their peers’ thoughts.’
‘I love reading student blogs,’ School of Hospitality Administration freshman Eleanor Brink said.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
