An observation that is probably more apparent to those who blog than those who read… and, that’s not meant as a slight to those who aren’t bloggers… again, just an observation…
While I still consider blogging a very effective tool in getting historical information and/or discussions out to a significant (and, likely, a more diverse/broad audience than that which typically limits information consumption to books) audience, there is something about blogging that strikes me as significantly problematic. I may have written about this before, but, in my opinion, the “splash and dash reader” (a person who reads a blog post, responds… and that can be in a comment, or in an unseen/unrealized reaction… to the single post, and moves on, possibly never to return to the blog) may not be getting the full impact of the blog, and/or the bigger picture when it comes to the blogger’s position on that particular topic of the day. Furthermore, it may be that those who respond to a post outside the blog (in extensions of the blog, in Facebook or Twitter), may be even more detached from the overall amount of information that rests somewhere deep in the catacombs of the blog. In my 3.5 years of blogging, I’ve encountered this on more than one occasion… one rather recently. It’s evident that this person commented based on what was read in a single post, when, in fact, the topic had been a point of discussion, at various times, as far back as that first few months in which I started the blog.
Granted, there are tags and categories that can lead the reader back to those earlier posts (even a key word/phrase search can be conducted), but, are those things really intuitive? I’d be guessing if I gave a percentage, but I believe that, prior to commenting, the trend is for most readers not to check deeper into the blogger’s position, through earlier posts.
So, what are your thoughts? How often do we find readers responding to single blog posts, without an apparent benefit of knowing that the conversation/discussion is well underway/ongoing? I’m throwing out a number here, but guessing that approximately 15-25% of the readers who respond to a single post do not gain the benefit of understanding the blogger’s position on that particular topic of the day. Apart from the standard tags, categories, and search tool (or even providing a long list of hyperlinks to all those posts that have covered a particular topic at an earlier time), is there a more effective way to address this?
*In the title, I said “messages in blogs”, but mean “information delivered through blogs”. Even so, despite what I say in the title, I’m not so sure such things would still be considered “cutting edge”… spreading as a tool, yes… but cutting edge… eh…
Harry Smeltzer
June 1, 2011
I’ve run across the same thing – a reader is upset with something he read in one of a series of posts, without reading anything else in the series, or they don’t read the comments to see how the piece has evolved. Perhaps we as bloggers need to communicate to the readers that there is a big difference between what we do and traditional, self contained print articles. Blogs are more “organic” – at least, they can be. It’s tough for readers to know especially when so many bloggers out there don’t choose to take advantage of the opportunites presented. To quote a controversial radio talk-show host “you have to listen for three hours, five days a week” to understand what’s going on.
Robert Moore
June 1, 2011
“Blogs are more ‘organic’ – at least, they can be.”
Exactly. I also call them “fluid”. Is this a part of our responsibility as bloggers? Meaning… we have to drive the reader (gently nudge) into understanding the fluidity/organic nature?
“It’s tough for readers to know especially when so many bloggers out there don’t choose to take advantage of the opportunites presented. To quote a controversial radio talk-show host “you have to listen for three hours, five days a week” to understand what’s going on.”
Yes, I agree there also, but, I think we have to be able to accomodate even the “splash and dash folks” to take advantage of the greatest possible reach. Problem is… how?
Ken Hershberger
June 1, 2011
As a sometimes reader of blogs, I fall into that 15-25% who respond to a post without reading everything in the blog. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) time doesn’t permit every reader to read every blog in it’s entirety if that reader comes a cross a post that sounds interesting. While that is perhaps unfair to an individual blogger and may leave the reader with the wrong impression of a topic that has a history behind it. I would venture to say that most of us don’t have the time to do as that talk show host suggests. There aren’t enough hours in a week to devote to delve thoroughly into the background of every interesting blog post you run across. There are just too many posts from too many bloggers to do that.
Robert Moore
June 1, 2011
I agree, Ken, it can be rather time-consuming to go back and read all that was said… which leads me to think a concise statement on certain major subjects (at the end of a post) might be an answer. Still not sure, but something needs to be in place.
Brooks D. Simpson
June 1, 2011
All you can do is to point the commenter is the right direction. Even if the commenter doesn’t respond, others will be able to place comments in context. After all, these exchanges are public, and there;s a broader audience than the commenter.
Robert Moore
June 1, 2011
True, but comments are no longer isolated to the blog. There’s also the disconnect in comments received via FB and Twitter, an those don’t necessarily come under the eyes of others who help to put all in context. On the other hand, some splash and dash commenters aren’t interested in greater detail, as their minds are already made up.
Harry Smeltzer
June 1, 2011
I’d prefer that folks who come to the blog via a social network leave their comments on the blog rather than on FB or Twitter. In fact, I don’t understand when they choose that other option – they have to come to the blog to read the article in the first place. Maybe I should place a reminder on FB to that effect. But it’s obvious some FB commenters didn’t read the whole post or the comments on either platform.
Robert Moore
June 2, 2011
While there are perks about linking a blog into FB, I think the ability to comment on the FB link is a bad thing. Comments should be force funneled to the blog, but even then, as you state, it’s apparent that some don’t read the body of posts.
jgo
June 2, 2011
I much prefer usenet news-groups with a decent news-reader.
Oh, sure, a web log or other web pages integrate images and video a little better than the old news-readers. But, even with tens of thousands of news-groups, there was less, uh, balkanization. Web logs have to be sought, and one could go years without happening to run across one that turns out to be of interest… if one ever does run across it. (Of course, part of the draw of usenet news-groups in the 1990s was that they were heavily inhabited by university people, including recognized experts in various fields from screen-writing to psychology to economics, game theory and physics — confirmed by IRL conversations.)
People don’t have time to immerse themselves in a decades-long conversation. It’s much easier to bop in, engage in a brief conversation as time allows, and move on to other matters. E-mail lists didn’t, and still don’t provide this convenience; they just fill your e-mail in-boxes with a lot of cruft that you then have to filter out… with the result that you often delete things you shouldn’t have and keep things that are no longer useful. (I used to get over 300 messages a day just having to do with various aspects of software product development, most of them of little value except to keep me informed of the existence of various issues.)
I really don’t see the attraction of having or reading a web log versus simply setting up your own web pages using raw HTML and seeking out non-”web log” web pages.
And I stay totally away from most privacy violation sites like FB and LinkedIn and Grouply. I’d stay away from Yahoo! and Google, too if I could find better alternatives… and I do avoid Google for most searches, now, preferring ixquick.
John Hennessy
June 2, 2011
I come at this from a different angle. At the NPS, we TALK to people all the time. While that’s fun and sometimes rewarding in the moment, the shelf life of what we say is typically a few minutes, or if we’re really good, a month or year. Speaking is especially unrewarding when you have something new or important to say. Most people don’t know enough to perceive newness or profundity, and so your idea rattles for a few minutes at best, and then vanishes forever as far as the consumer goes. For us, or at least me, having a blog like Mysteries and Conundrums is a far more enduring way to convey information and ideas. Too, it’s allowed us to crystallize our thoughts and institutionalize our knowledge–which is NOT the case when you have eight or ten historians doing their own thing for programs that last 45 minutes and then vanish. I have learned a great deal from doing our blog–it forces me to think in ways I’d not been commanded to before–and I think those of our staff who read it have learned from it too. It has materially affected the quality of the programs we give to the public; more importantly, it’s a functional legacy of what we learn and know.
Robert Moore
June 2, 2011
Now that’s significant, John, and I appreciate you sharing that angle. I imagine the frustration that some may feel when telling a story, knowing that many of the words are left drifting on the wind in the aftermath. The hope has to be that something was able to stick, somewhere, in someone’s mind. I don’t see the end objective any different in blogging. We hope we’re not whistling in the wind, and hope that folks take time to read, think, and, perhaps, offer thoughtful commentary on what we said. As you point out, the advantage that we have in blogs is that the words have a home, crystallized, and still available for the reader at another time.
Sherree
June 13, 2011
“As you point out, the advantage that we have in blogs is that the words have a home, crystallized, and still available for the reader at another time.”
Yes. As a reader with limited time to devote to reading CW blogs, this is an important feature of blogs–the ability to come back to the blog posts as time allows.
I find it a privilege to be able to access such a wide and diverse field of knowledge with so many differing viewpoints. Also, it is fascinating to see how historical interpretations are created and how schools of thought develop, as opposed to seeing the historian as Moses coming down from the mountain with stone tablets, let’s say.
In other words, historians are human; studying history is not an exact science; history is not static; and the past is continually open to interpretation and reinterpretation. That is an adult view of the profession and of the craft. There is no definitive history of any war or of any era, and it is an unrealistic expectation of members of the public at large to seek definitive answers to that which cannot be answered definitively–how we view the past.