Ok, so on a couple of websites I shot my mouth off and said, "I just don't get this blogging thing." Still don't I guess.

(hyperTheme) First of all I don't understand what all the hubbub is about.

(support) Why are your run of the mill bloggers being treated like "real" journalists? Having worked in the media for almost 10 years, I guess I still consider this sport like public access cable. Sure it helps further freedom of speech, sure it seems like fun, and sure other people can read your drivel if they so desire. However, just because you have a website that has a high readership is that enough to qualify you as a journalist?

(hyperTheme) Here's the problem see. Just as with public access cable, you are free to cablecast just about anything, just follow a few simple rules.

(support) Now here is where I have a problem of sorts. I was reading some of the blogs from the Democratic convention, and let me just say I was less than impressed. Some of them may have well been written by chairman of the democratic party himself. Others just border on Libel, one fellow seems well on his way to a big fat libel suit. Good luck with that chief. Would it bother anyone to pick up a copy of the AP Libel manual and read it before claiming "Hey! I'm a blogger, I'm a journalist!! Yay!!!" ?

(hyperNew)Another big problem with every Tom, Dick, and Harry writing blogs and being festooned like Journlists is it breaks down further the trust of the media in general as well as the trust of information on the internet.

(macroNew) I look at these blogs more like "Letter to Editor" pages in the local waste of a tree. Now granted, I am just dipping a toe into the water, so I am prone to changing my mind. However as of right now I do not see what the big deal is, why I should care, or even why anyone should take blogs seriously? Maybe I will find the answers to these questions, maybe not. But if I get bored with something I tune it out completely.

(coda) So don't expect this thing to get updated very often. Maybe even never. I don't know. We shall just have to wait and see.

At first read, this just sounds like a rant. But after applying an SFL style analysis, I noticed a lot of contradictions that didn’t pop out at first read and that I wonder if they are intentionally odd in order to achieve some sort of effect. In some sense, the whole entry is a clash between form and content: criticizing blogging using the form of a blog, and using the form of argumentation, but not with sensible content given that form.

Not only is the author criticizing blogging while actually blogging, he does something very subtle. First he questions why bloggers treat themselves as though they were journalists. He then presents a list of problems with this. But then when he goes on to say what he thinks instead, he still casts bloggers as journalists of a form, albeit lay journalists, but isn’t that what would be assumed of bloggers also? Furthermore, by referring to local papers as “waste of a tree”, in some sense he downgrades what it would mean to be a “real journalist” anyway. All in all, the macroNew paragraph seems to serve to close the gap between bloggers and real journalists rather than do the opposite, which one would expect, given its positioning in the overall argument.

Now consider the usage of markers of argumentation, especially in the middle paragraph. The sequencing sounds wrong: “Now here’s a problem…Now here is where I have a problem…” Tags like this should allow you to find the overall structure of the argument. But the oddness of the sequencing leaves you wondering how each piece fits in. Some contrasts are odd on further inspection. For example, a contrast between people who are chairmen of a party versus people guilty of libel. In the first paragraph, the clauses marked with “sure…” should be concessions. But after thinking about it, they all seem irrelevant to the question at hand, which seems to be whether blogging should “count” as “real journalism”.