Does Blogging Help or Hinder Online Debate?
September 11, 2012 3 Comments
Time was when the scholar, the preacher and the politician sat down and wrote a book, or at least a pamphlet or article, and sent it out into the world as an invitation to engage in debate. Today there are many other ways of reaching people and interacting with them. It is a long time since Wired predicted the death of blogging, but it still seems to me to have a lot of life left in it. For some, the blog has become a substitute, if not for the book, then certainly for the pamphlet — they write write long and detailed posts, sustaining an argument over many pages. Usually, they attract similarly weighty comments from their readers. Others aim at a more popular treatment, and very often their comment columns are all but taken over by people who seem to think debate consists in trading insults. More than one person has been put off blogging by the sheer nastiness of personal attacks and abuse, which has impoverished the blogosphere and online debate generally. So, perhaps the jury is out on whether blogging helps or hinders online debate. It provides an opportunity for debate, but we don’t always make the most of it. Partly, I suspect, that comes from the different expectations we bring to it…
Read more at iBenedictines
HT: eChurch Blog
About Fr Stephen Smuts
Consider the internet as a modern Ring of Gyges.
Indeed the blog came late for me, as too the computer. I have yet to get the hang of this thing!
So thankfully we have bloggers like you Fr. Stephen, who know the ropes, and we can comment on and off your much better blog! Indeed I can blog daily and often, but I am up and down, off and on, etc. And certainly the blog does have its great limits, but I guess this is the time and tool that Christians can use for some aspects of Christian communicaion & theology. But in the end, it must be the reality of the message, rather than the messenger, (i.e. the blogger).
Both! I believe blogging allows for provocation of ideas and communication. Certain bloggers are even secure enough to be transparent so as to invite an equally honest response. However, there is a new evolution of passive-aggressive discourse that saddens me. From the curious to the passionate “discussions”, lost is that human give-and-take that was once the rudder to all conversations. Sometimes, I feel I’m engaged in parallel monologues as if compromise or understanding another’s point of view was never a consideration. As for me, I rather discuss ANYTHING over a cup of coffee (my treat!).
Shine on Father and thank you for your sacrifice.
His,
Chris