Time to reflect and drink beer

‘Well that’s it, it’s my final posting,’ I tell myself, but I know it isn’t true. The truth is if all goes to plan I will be continuing with my blog outside of the subject, perhaps on blogger. Despite by initial cynicism on blogs, net communications and technology in general, it seems I have become a blogger – and moreover, I have enjoyed the transition. My original qualms about blogging were as follows; nobody will read it, they are overhyped and utterly egotistical, I’m a pen and paper kind of guy, and blogs are useless. Through the subject, I have come to the realisation that blogging is a potentially powerful format, and a heap of fun.

Sure, they may not be able to replace the mainstream media, but there are many blogs out there are worth reading. The long tail dictates that with a bit of sleuth work, anyone can uncover a blog on whatever it is they like to do outside of uni/work/school. This may seem obvious, but before doing the subject I had never read a blog before, beside the professional ‘Huffington Post’, which covers US Politics (and to be fair I didn’t consider this a blog, but a website). Through blogging I have discovered the passion of the amateur. Reading a blog from someone completely passionate and knowledgeable on their niche, the sense of excitement is utterly contagious.

As well as blogging, the subject (in a rather roundabout way) has sparked my growing interest in the theories of Geert Lovink, Anna Nimus and Matteo Pasquinelli, among others.

The internet is a fascinating economy of information, conflict, finance, subversion and politics, and the listed theorists have opened up my mind to this reality.

Once again, outside the bounds of the subject I plan to read on, starting with Arther Krokers’s ‘The Will to Technology and Culture of Nihilism’ and Matteo Pasquinelli’s ‘Animal Spirits: A Bestiary of the Commons’.

Ironically, in the crowded blogosphere, the blogs which seemed to get the most hits were not my intermittent music reviews but the actual academic blogs written for the subject. The obvious weakness of net communications (as I’m sure many, many students wrote in their reflections) is the clash between the niche blogs, and academic blogs.

The requirement to blog ‘academically’ strips the blogs of any credibility, overshadowing the niche blogs themselves, effectively incubating the  experience.

That noted, without the academic component, this wouldn’t be a university subject, and I never would have jhad so much fun reading up on Techno-Nihilism, or the Grammar of Sabotage.

While I have put considerable work into the posts themselves, my knowledge of wordpress could definitely be improved. I purposefully chose to limit by blogs to words and pictures, almost like an ebook of a magazine. Personally, I don’t enjoy watching videos and clips while trying to read an article – I find it a bit self defeating, as if admitting that the textual component is inferior to (often generic) youtube clips.

The one aspect I definitely need to work on is the blog networking. Given the academic nature, I was hesitant to do this, and ultimately settled with a blogroll of links instead.

Despite the shrinking lecture attendance, and minimal tute participation I enjoyed this subject. Hopefully ‘You Will Be Judged’ will be up and running on blogger in the next few weeks.

So that’s the semester done and it’s time to crack a tinny, turn up the tunes and sit back – reflection time is over!

Cheers,

Michael Kingston