In his ground-breaking book, The medium is the massage: an inventory of effects, published in 1967, media analyst Marshall McLuhan coined the term ‘global village’ (McLuhan; Fiore, cited in Barnes, 2002, p.28) to describe how the mass media enabled communication by collapsing known concepts of time and space; it was a forward-thinking and almost prophetic way of describing the way we communicate now.
Today, ‘the internet enables people to store, retrieve, and share information on a worldwide level – instantly’ (Barnes, 2002, p.28). Modern tools and systems have made three previously cost-prohibitive functions – production, duplication and distribution – that impact the way information is transmitted, more accessible and cost-efficient than ever.
Average Joe can now create and participate in the delivery of content and he can do these without ever leaving his house.
In an age of instant gratification – from instant foods to instant marriage licenses – we expect no less in the tools we use to communicate. The appeal of instant user-generated content, such as weblogs or ‘blogs’, which are basically ‘websites populated with regular commentaries, event descriptions, and other materials such as photographs, graphics, music or videos’ (2010), lies in its ability to allow people to share their lives instantaneously, and other than their accessibility and cost-efficiency, the immediacy of blogs greatly appeal to users.
Image Source:
Kelly Khoo
References:
Barnes, SB, 2002, Characteristics of computer-mediated communication, Allyn and Bacon, Boston.
Wikipedia, Blog, viewed 22 February 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
