Methods of Communication: Blogs

BLOGS

Retrieved April 10, 2015 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Internal_blog.gif

Blogs or "weblogs," in basic terms, are are medium through which a person can produce articles, journal entries, and learning materials informally for an online audience. Two additional definitions for blogs include: 

“…the first journalistic model that actually harnesses rather than merely exploits the true democratic nature of the web. It’s a new medium finally finding a unique voice.”–Andrew Sullivan

“[a] collection of posts…short, informal, sometimes controversial, and sometimes deeply personal…with the freshest information at the top.”–Meg Hourihan

It is not uncommon today for bloggers (writers of blogs) to develop a following, and to later see their blog adapted to novel or movie format. The book/film Julia and Julia, for example, derived from the author's blog about spending a year cooking Julia Child's as a rite of passage. 

According to BlogBasics, there are several characteristics to a blog: 

a blog has some form of navigation, usually menus

a blog’s layout contains a header, footer and content.  Usually there is at least one sidebar running beside the content.

categories of posts

that readers can access the archives, previous posts

that a post can contain text and images, (and often video and other media)

that posts can contain links to other posts, both within blog and to the entire web

should contain a contact page and form

should contain an about page

Reference
BlogBasics. Retrieved April 10, 2015 from http://blogbasics.com/what-is-a-blog/.