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The Buzz About Defining Blogs

When I was the ripe young age of 25, a newsroom colleague called me a curmudgeon. Not long after I met my wife, she started telling me repeatedly, "You have a tone." That was her way of saying I was a grumpy, old man by age 29.

Maybe that's why I get a kick out of reading the rants of Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine. He is the king of curmudgeons, the role model of grumpy men everywhere, young or old.

His cantankerous response to an Online Journalism Review query about defining blogs is a perfect example. It is the kind of answer that makes me think Jarvis should rename his blog BearMachine, as in bearish. Here is what he told OJR:

"There is no need to define 'blog.' I doubt there ever was such a call to define 'newspaper' or 'television' or 'radio' or 'book' -- or, for that matter, 'telephone' or 'instant messenger.' A blog is merely a tool that lets you do anything from change the world to share your shopping list. People will use it however they wish. And it is way too soon in the invention of uses for this tool to limit it with a set definition. That's why I resist even calling it a medium; it is a means of sharing information and also of interacting: It's more about conversation than content ... so far.

"I think it is equally tiresome and useless to argue about whether blogs are journalism, for journalism is not limited by the tool or medium or person used in the act. Blogs are whatever they want to be. Blogs are whatever we make them. Defining 'blog' is a fool's errand."

I disagree with much of what Jarvis said. Defining "blog" is not a fool's errand; it is a legitimate, informational pursuit -- the kind that motivates journalists every day. Every time I tell someone back home in West Virginia that I blog and they ask what a blog is, I appreciate the value of being able to explain the concept -- to define it -- in a succinct, clear manner.

Jarvis also is wrong to suggest that there was never an effort to define other media terms like newspaper, television, radio and book. Save "instant messenger," old Mr. Webster long ago defined every single term in Jarvis' list. And I obviously don't think it is either tiresome or useless to debate whether blogs are journalism or I would not have done just that at a Heritage Foundation roundtable in July.

Ironically, Jarvis even provides two meaty definitions of "blog" in his anti-dictionary tirade: 1) "A blog is merely a tool that lets you do anything from change the world to share your shopping list;" and 2) "it is a means of sharing information and also of interacting: It's more about conversation than content."

All that said, I love the passion that Jarvis brings to any subject that moves him to speak. That passion, dear readers, is the essence of the blog.

Which brings me back to the Jarvis quote I used to close my Heritage speech, a thought I wholeheartedly endorse: "Journalism is institutional, impersonal, and dispassionate; blogs are human, personal, and passionate. ... At the end of the day, I don't want to see blogs turn into an institution, or try to, for then they wouldn't be blogs anymore."

UPDATE: Jon Garfunkel of Civilities may be on BuzzMachine's hit list because he has dared to write not one but three definitions for "bloggers."

Which one applies to you, the loose definition, the strict one or the tight take? What other definitions do you have?

Posted by | 10:06 AM

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Comments

The name is Jon Garfunkel, not Joe. And the piece was on definitions of bloggers, not blogs, for which I put forth the leanest definition. Relavent to the work here, I would identify you as a blogger in the "strict" sense, but the fact that this blog is published by a magazine, often bugs the bloggers in the "tight" sense of the definition, such as Jarvis.

As to whether I am on Jarvis's "hitlist": he has enough critics of his blogging styles, which is t times sloppy, distractable, and repetitive; he doesn't really have time to quarrel with them all. But here's a good one with Media Bloggers Association president Robert Cox -- http://www.thenationaldebate.com/blog/archives/2005/09/never_have_so_m_1.html

Jon Garfunkel | 10.15.05 01:42 PM

You type "relavent" and "which is t times"... and you call me sloppy? Harumph.

Jeff Jarvis | 10.15.05 08:08 PM

Hi Jon,

Sorry for getting your name wrong and for saying "blogs" instead of "bloggers." I have fixed those mistakes in the entry. As for the crack about a hit list, that was tongue-in-cheek -- though apparently not clearly so.

Danny

Danny Glover | 10.15.05 08:17 PM

Fight! Fight! Below the beltway!
I guess we both have our vowel troubles.

I shouldn't make a comment without being here to back it up. The confusion over the definition of "blog" above is why I discuss Jeff Jarvis's method as a sloppy. He wants it both ways: yes, a definition, but, no, don't fence me in.

And meanwhile, Jarvis gets 550 words. I get 45. That's the A-List.

And here's where it nips him in the bud. Bob Cox showed up at a panel at Columbia Journalism School, and asked a question about bloggers being closer to Murrow's legacy. Ok it was a leading question, but nonetheless, Lemann, Clooney, et al. dismissed him. Certain people-- call them media gatekeepers if you will-- still scoff at bloggers.

Now this won't bother Jarvis since he has his own perch, and that will be institutionalized in midtown next year, and it really doesn't matter to him who is a blogger at all. But it might matter to the other less-covered members of the Media Bloggers Association.

Jon Garfunkel | 10.16.05 08:04 PM

Link to Bob's post re: Columbia.
http://www.thenationaldebate.com/blog/archives/2005/10/after_a_special.html

This is from Bob's blog.

Jon Garfunkel | 10.16.05 08:06 PM

Hi Jon,

The amount of space dedicated to Jeff's views on defining "blogs" versus your take on defining "bloggers" has nothing to do with him being on some imagined A-list. It has everything to do with the fact that his entry was written Sept. 30 and yours was written two weeks later.

I originally posted this entry just after Jeff shared his views. I merely updated it with a link to your blog about the subject, and moved the revised entry to the top of Beltway Blogroll, after I found your definitions.

Such updates are common practice in the blogosphere, and they certainly are not intended as a way to rank one blogger over another. It's just a technique for quickly following up on a story without writing an entirely new entry.

Danny

Danny Glover | 10.17.05 07:21 AM

I'm aware of that practice. But never mind, seems we've gone off track here.

Jon Garfunkel | 10.17.05 08:47 AM

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