Why Blog?

I’ve been wondering lately, what’s the point of blogging? I suppose if you have a readership looking for specific information it’s great. My only previous experience with blogging was for a trip I went on. I spent the summer in Papua New Guinea, and in order to keep people back home informed on what I was doing and share stories, I blogged. It was much easier than having a mailing list, and let far more people access it, (not that there were that many people reading it). When I got home, my friends and family already knew some of my stories because they’d been reading the blog. That made the task of summing up my life changing summer a little easier.

But without such a very specific purpose, why blog? Right now, this feels more like writing in my journal, (except for the typing part). I’m aware that someone else may read this, I have no idea when or where or why though.  (Except for my professor, who presumably has to read this.) And if this is more like a journal entry, why put it on the internet, where privacy is effectively lost? Why not keep my musings to myself in my journal that sits by my bed?

Even if I want others to read what I’m writing, what on earth do I write? What could I possibly have to offer the masses in a blog? I guess I feel a bit lost here. Any suggestions?

Meaningfully Mediated

What does it mean to be mediated? I'm spending this semester trying to figure that out for a class I'm taking called... Mediate Culture, of course! My professor, Dr. Wesch, has talked about the idea that we are all mediated by the kinds of media we use. Whether that be the internet, television, telephones, texting, social networks, blogs, sites like YouTube, and even things as basic to our lives as language. So in a sense, we are each changed and filtered through the media we consume and create every day... we are mediated.  

You might say that I'm not a very "plugged in" person... but that's precisely why I'm creating this blog. In order to understand how we as a society are mediated, I need to be actively participating in the world of media. It's participant-observation... a term you here in anthropology all the time; a research technique where the researcher not only observes the culture & society he's working in, he participates in it and therefore comes to a deeper understanding of it. 

This isn't just a class project, this is research that I'm genuinely interested in. So please, post your thoughts, comments, questions, anything... I want to know what YOU think about technology, media, & culture. How are you mediated?