Blog Use Motivations

What are the main reasons why so many people around the world blog? Before the age of the internet it was difficult for the average person to broadcast their personal views, and opinions on things like the government and media. With the use of a blog one is able with the power of free speech to say whatever they want to without having any interference. Most bloggers have a need to express what is going on in their world and with the power of the internet this is possible. Now that doesn't mean that all blogs provide factual arguments, or complete ideas, it just means it is feasible within a few mere minutes to join a blogging site, set up a blog, and then write from a personal point of view how their world is operating. With the ability to create a blog with a certain tone comes the ability to target a blog towards a specific audience which is able to follow stories that the mainstream media might not follow either, for an extended period of time, or at all.

This study identified that there were 10 blocks of reasons for blogging; Blog Presentation/Characteristics, Personal Fulfillment, Expression/Affiliation with bloggers and blog users, Information seeking, Intellectual/Aesthetic Fulfillment, Anti-Traditional-Media Sentiment, Guidance/Opinion seeking, convenience, Political Surveillance, and Fact Checking. So through these means of blogging, the mass public for once is empowered by the opportunity to choose what they want to read in a manner of how they want it presented to them. Blogging is the new alternative to mass media while strangely still being a small part of media in itself. "Blogs are defined as what they are not, Traditional Media." Blogs are a way of keeping traditional print, TV, and radio in check because they are not controlled by major corporations. Blogs don't have alternative motives to try and tell a story in the same specific manner, they are able to change instantaneously. The ability to evolve from what the mainstream media continues to do the same way in one of the major reasons why blogs have become so popular on the internet around the world in this day and age.