Words
Still — wary as I am of taking issue with Rosen, whose prescience is formidable — I don’t think we will see the term “blogger” fade away any time soon. There’s a difference between a term that’s so broad it’s lost all meaning and a term that has a couple of useful meanings that may conflict with each other.After all, we still use the word “journalist,” even though it has cracked in two (”journalist” as professional label vs. “journalist” as descriptor of an activity). This is where human language (what programmers call “natural language”) differs from computer languages: our usage of individual words changes as it records our experience with their evolving meanings.
In other words, the multiple meanings of the word “blogger” may bedevil us, but they also tell a story.
Indeed. People take issue with the word 'content' as it applies to media, wanting to apply something more meaningful to what is produced but I think it's useful in terms of simplifying conversations about that production. On 'blogging' itself, I think as long as journalists and media commentators continue to use the term in a pejorative manner it will exist as a useful definition. I'll continue to use it as a useful descriptor when necessary.
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