A BATTLEFIELD OF BLOGS
This post is in regards to the article "Blogs of War" writen by Paul S. Piper and Miguel Ramos. The article published last Feburary presents the many roles blogs and the internet have played over the last several years during the War on Terrorism. It gives examples of such blogs (including their URL's) with some details as to who the authors of the blogs are. The article lacks opinion, but instead tries to focus on facts. Because of this the reader is left to come to their own ideas about how effective these "war" blogs are, if they should be considered accurate accounts of what's really going on in Iraq, and if blogging is putting people in a war zone at risk.
Since I did read this article and this is an opinionated blog page I am going to share my thoughts. "War blogs" present the human element of war in a way that other media nolonger can. It is important that people are reminded of how real war really is. Sometimes it seems so easy to pass off war as something that is far away and does not concern us. Reading these blogs reminds us of the loss of life, the hardship, and the people who we would otherwise never know or hear from. To silence these blogs would be to deny history.
posted by Dimitri | 10:49 PM
4 Comments:
I agree. The blogs that I read hit a lot closer to home than anything else I would otherwise read or hear publicly.
Blogs of war is informative and does not lack opinion. The article explains and weighs some aspects to consider and evaluate, while deciding for yourself how accurate the accounts are.
I do agree that a human element is coveyed here that is not elsewhere in the media. A more empathetic public could result.
I agree that it is important for people, especially Americans, to be reminded of how real war is. However I disagree with the statement that other media can no longer report these personal stories the way blogs do. Perhaps I’m taking your post too literally, but I think TV news media should report news directly from the source of the soldiers doing the fighting. It certainly isn’t a technological barrier preventing TV news from broadcasting those type of stories. Yes, silencing these blogs would be denying history, but I think there is no real risk of that happening anytime soon. The Internet will probably always be a platform for sharing information that governments would prefer we did not.
I do believe that is fair that people are able to express themselves in blog of war. However, they should still use caution, especially those who are troops. Giving information that could expose where they are or secret information should not be posted, just like the press can't. But in some ways I agree that the media has failed and if someone wants to know how war is, these blogs may be the only other insight.
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