Meet Joe Blog - Lev Grossman

In "Meet Joe Blog," Lev Grossman provides a good overview and basic history of blogging. In this essay, Grossman asserts that, "blogs have gone from an obscure and frankly, somewhat nerdy fad to a genuine alternative to mainstream news outlets, a shadow media empire that is rivaling networks and newspapers in power and influence" (555). It is strange to read about the rise of blogging in a world that so many of us have been a part of, yet so many Americans still do not know what they are, or if they are even beneficial to them.

In Grossman's view, "we may be in the golden age of blogging, a quirky Camelot moment in Internet history when some guy in his underwear with too much free time can take down a Washington politician" (559). However, most blogs have more of a common, if not parasitic, relationship with pro-news outlets, and rarely do blog readers get their news solely from blogs. The majority of people obtain the news from news media outlets, magazines, or from word of mouth. Blogs are always brought up in conversations and somehow can never be ignore by anyone.

Blogs were one of those bothersome buzz languages that anyone could ignore. Blog is a short term for Web-Blog; it can work as both verb and noun. Blogs can be described as a webpage where anyone could post daily journal writing about whatever they like. The majority of blogs were just commenting on and making connections to other online articles that caught everyone's attention. Bloggers wrote about much more narrow topics, unlike media outlets, often rising to become wannabe media experts and news media watchers. For example, Perez Hilton.com is a blog written by Perez Hilton, wannabe media expert who claims to know the juicy celebrity gossip.

Most Americans could have cared less about blogs, however, it turns out some people have attention-grabbing thoughts and viewpoints on a regular basis that draw considerable audiences. Blogs evolved into channels for legitimate news and other important information. Blogs focus attention on issues that catch reader's attention, but they can also introduce headline-breaking stories, keeping them ahead of mainstream news outlets. Now a day, news media outlets obtain headline-breaking stories from blogs and use them as a source of information. In addition, they are used more because they are a free source of information.

Blogs are so effective in what they do because they are free to the public. They grab the attention of the reader everywhere from work to school. Blogs are often updated everyday, all day, and there are billions of them on the World Wide Web. Blogs emphasize personality and voice in blogs, almost being human in a way. Blogs come from individuals in their everyday habitat; not from news anchors in an air-conditioned sound stage. They both "represent and are the voice of the little guy" (557).

In addition, blogs are beneficial