Bloggish is as Bloggish Does

Pastor Page, January 15, 2008

I came across a new word recently--bloggish. It seems to mean “having the character of a blog,” and I suppose you’d use it in a sentence like this: “That article is very bloggish.” If you aren’t a fan of blogs, it would mean “amateurish” and “sensationalistic;” if you tend to like them, “timely” and “empowering.” What’s that you say? You don’t know what a “blog” is? Well, the word is shorthand for “web log,” World Wide Web sites which contain sequential series of written entries, along the lines of a journal, only these are available (if the author wishes) to anyone on the web. They’ve evolved to be personal publishing platforms, but first came to prominence in the news business, where they are generally regarded with disdain. I suspect that’s where I first heard the adjective “bloggish,” and it was most definitely was pejorative.

Almost any business these days will have a blog, if they want to seem up-to-date in the internet department, anyway. And there are some very prominent bloggers (see? there’s another new word!). Perhaps the most (in)famous one is Matt Drudge, whose Drudge Report started out as an email news update, and evolved into a news-based blog late in the 20^th century. For better or worse, The Drudge Report became a thorn in the side of traditional media—it’s perhaps most well-known for breaking the Monica Lewinsky story when Newsweek sat on it. Other prominent bloggers include Andrew Sullivan, Film critic Roger Ebert and Ariana Huffington.

The good thing about a blog is that anybody can write one. Of course, the bad thing about a blog is that anybody can write one. Anybody with a grudge, with an axe to grind, can hook up with one of several services (like blogspot.com or wordpress.com) and start blogging for free. There are a lot of hateful blogs out there, by anti-semites, neo-Nazis and pornographers. It doesn’t take long to find them, either . . . all you have to do is do a Google or Yahoo search. But at the same time, they are at the forefront of a revolution—they’ve broken the monopoly of the publishing and news industries, with all their well-documented biases. They allow people with talent and legitimate points of view to be heard, something that doesn’t always happen in the increasingly corporate-dominated media. This is especially true in the arts: for example, there are some well-regarded poetry [including Wordplay Poetry Blog where Pam is a contributor] and film [e.g., Jim Emerson’s Scanners] sites.

Christianity is well-represented in the blog-world, and as it becomes less-and-less fashionable to be a Christian, as mainstream publishers’ religious imprints continue to shrink, they become increasingly important in spreading the gospel. Several thoughtful examples are In the Agora, God’s Politics (Jim Wallis’ blog), and Wanderings of a Post-Modern Pilgrim. And Covenant Presbyterian Church now has a blog, where I post my sermons and newsletter articles, and where our weekly schedule is published. You can find it by pressing here. Happy reading!