According to Wired today in a report entitled Riot like it’s May 1968, the recent rioters in France have been using blog messages and cell phones. This is a nice pointer to the roll blogs and cells have in our world. Organized online “events” aren’t a new thing, past crazees such as Flash Mobs are testment to the power of the word on the web.
Maybe it is just like it always was with people using tools they have to act upon what they see as injustice. It is just that nowadays we don’t have many pitch forks lying about and like to have our revolution more comfy. As a predictable result Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has begun putting resources into monitoring blogs to anticpate the moves. This game of cyber chess is a familiar dance of governments across the globe and will come as no suprise. I am reminded of the number of people who have lost their job through company tactics of a similar ilke. Isn’t the mere fact that they are monitoring a testement to the power of these blogs though. Blogging is a tool of strength and frivolity. Some abuse the right to blog like the right to spandex, but often (more often thankfully) you gain insight. This might just be into the ranty opinions of another and a chance to get into someone’s moccasins for a few minutes, but it might also be to show injustice and even in this case take a stance even if it is a violent rioting one.
As a blogger you can reach more than your close circle and aquaintences. You most of the time don’t even know much bar a hit rate, file rate, rss feed rate or the odd comment on your blog. The range of your pixel message is something that is often not the focal point of it’s delivery. It is the need to say something out into cyberspace – even if it is just to say hi. The need to blog is along the lines of the basic need in human animals to communicate, to touch base, to make their presence know. I blog myself for many varying reasons as does anyone. My reasons with this blog I have said before and include wanting to share my expriences as a web designer and also to hopefully pass a bit of it on as I have been lucky enough to receive so much in my career. With regards to my personal blog “life according to karmatosed”, the reasons stem from a need to vent, a need to get some of the random stuff out of my head on a regular basis. and the need to purely have a place where I can speak. We all need a release in life and many now turn to blogging on the web rather than gossiping at coffee machines.
Whatever you reason might be for blogging or the reason of the blogger you are reading, the power of the blog is something you can’t really quantify. Just as the old smoke signal or drummers of the past, the power of communication is a fundament to society. It can boil down to a good gossip, to standing up for something you believe in, releasing what is piled in your brain or giving others information. Ultimately using blogs, mobiles and the technology we have around us to communicate is just part of being human. We use the tools around us to act upon this basic need. Blogging is something natural and powerful at the same time. I gain pleasure from writing this and I gain pleasure and insight from other blogs. What a great blogging world we live in. The very fact that blogs are monitored is a direct pointer to their power. It is not nice, but it is expected as a communication tool. Through out the ages governments, companies and indivduals have sought to control the masses and limit their communication. Blogging monitoring is just an extension of this control freakness they prevade into every media. Just remember they woudn’t want to monitor anything if it wasn’t worth monitoring.
