Blogging The Status Quo

If ever you've taken a course in media, communication, or journalism, then it was impossible to escape the phrase, "the media tells people not what to think, but what to think about." With the advent of broadband, the weblog and other citizen journalism outlets, that fundamental tenet of media theory may reverse itself. "The media industry has changed more in the past 8 years than in the previous 80 because of broadband," Reuters executive and journalism veteran Dean Wright told John Burke at it has changed and their own agenda and thereby telling the media (and advertisers too) what to think about instead. AOL's purchase of Weblogs Inc., a reported $25 million investment, shows the e-commerce world's faith in citizen journalism. The blogosphere is fast-paced and analytical, more editorial than journalistic, and most importantly the weblog style is engaging with a personal feel-almost like an online, real-time text soap opera. And it's not just that e-marketers understand the appeal of bull's eye targeted advertising (or even the unscrupulous practice of