Welcome to class. Please go through the syllabus thoroughly and then ask me any questions through a WebCT email.

Because it is essential students understand the plurality of the interactive world, they will be required to navigate three user-friendly content management systems or platforms for the course. They are beyondambiguity.com, the main class area, Moodle the leading open-source code course management system, and the university system, WebCT, which is accessed through Uconnect. (Simply click on "My Courses" and then our class once you are on Uconnect.) Students are required to log-on to each of these systems with their university username. Students create their own passwords for beyondambiguity.com and Moodle, following easy registration instructions, and use their university pin number for WebCT. Students must access these sites immediately in order to complete the requirements of the class. Students will submit their essays to Turnitin.com.

(The course Blogs: New Independent Media is still available on Moodle and UCO's WebCT system.)

Welcome to class. Please go through the syllabus thoroughly and then ask me any questions through a WebCT email.

Because it is essential students understand the plurality of the interactive world, they will be required to navigate three user-friendly content management systems or platforms for the course. They are beyondambiguity.com, the main class area, Moodle the leading open-source code course management system, and the university system, WebCT, which is accessed through Uconnect. (Simply click on "My Courses" and then our class once you are on Uconnect.) Students are required to log-on to each of these systems with their university username. Students create their own passwords for beyondambiguity.com and Moodle, following easy registration instructions, and use their university pin number for WebCT. Students must access these sites immediately in order to complete the requirements of the class. Students will submit their essays to Turnitin.com.

As we turn our attention to the next paper, which is about blogs, I think we should debate the current influence of blogging on the mainstream media.

For years now, most mainstream daily "hard-copy" newspapers have lost circulation. Many attribute this to the decline in readership among younger readers who now do most of their reading (if they read) on the Internet. Check out articles in the industry's trade publication, Editor and Publisher, for more on this issue.

Meanwhile, bloggers from all political spectrums now criticize and critique the mainstream media for bias, and their views can be read by anyone accessing the Internet. My blog, Okie Funk: Notes From The Outback, for example, has an Oklahoma Media Watch section dedicated to monitoring the local press for a conservative bias. This is a common type of local blog now, and, again, these blogs represent many sides of the political spectrum, from the left and right.

The media's first response to blogs was to dismiss them, and even now some monopoly newspapers, such as The New York Times or even The Daily Oklahoman, only grudgingly acknowledge or rarely acknowledge popular bloggers. The Oklahoman, for example, has a small bloggers section, but the blogs in this section do not come close to representing the most popular blogs by hits and reputation in Oklahoma. The newspaper, one of the most conservative newspapers in the country, does link to other Oklahoma blogs in this section, but none which consistently criticize its news coverage or point out it rarely allows substantive dissenting views to its conservative, one-sided editorials.

(For an extensive list of Oklahoma blogs, check out Blog Oklahoma.)

Thus, overall, the relationship between bloggers and the mainstream media remains adversarial as the corporate media tries in vain to absorb blogging and recreate it as a boring, generic genre that does not offend or entertain. My opinion is this adversarial relationship only weakens and hurts the mainstream media. But those who own huge monopolies are nothing if arrogant; this arrogance could eventually splinter the press into even more partisan political fragments and hurt the corporate bottom line.

The idea that this country has or ever had a fair and impartial press has been finally and forever exposed by bloggers from the right and left.

Here is a Daily Kos post, for example, on how The Washington Post recently responded arrogantly to its electronic readers.

Some relatively new media sites, such as Salon.com, do an excellent job of meeting the needs of new readers. Take a look, for example, at how they handle bloggers. Note the sections "Blogging From The Left" and "Blogging From The Right." Slate is also another good Internet media site.

Another problem for hard-copy newspaper and magazine operations is they are tied to the huge costs of the printing press to make the product and fossil fuels to distribute the product. Electronic publications and blogs virtually eliminate all these costs, though they do require electricity, of course, which can be generated by fossil fuels as well.

Another problem is that mainstream journalists are not practiced in writing online, which requires the use of links in a new rhetorical format that is much different than the traditional, pyramid-style newspaper story. Perhaps many editors and reporters are simply not intelligent enough to write in this new format, or maybe they need retraining. Online writing is more difficult but also more artful and pertinent in the "Information Age" than standard journalistic writing.

Meanwhile, citizen journalists continue to offer a plethora of unique and interesting approaches and views to the news. Blogs are also interactive, a read and write medium, and they link to evidence and other arguments. (I am constantly amazed that many traditional online newspaper sites do not link very often to related information. Linking is an important facet of online writing.)

Some even argue that blogs and new media sites on the Internet will secure democracy in America, Others fear government will try to increasingly control Internet content with the help of the mainstream media.

Here is a great Wikipedia entry on the blog for you to read. I have set up forums on Moodle for our discussions about this issue.

I want to know what YOU think.

(Oh, yeah, this post contains links to 15 different sites. The average online newspaper story in this country does not link to any outside sites. Of course, the hard-copy newspaper or magazine never clicks, does it?)

(Next: The mechanics of blogs.)