06 December 2001

Readers and Writers and Purposes

For this week's dose of Disenchanted, Chris Wenham posts a provocative piece that ostensibly treats the question of the impact of advertising on writing. In reaching his conclusion (which I won't spoil -- go read it) Chris considers the oft-neglected part of the equation, the reader:

Putting the indie's argument a better way, it's the suspicion that non-independent journalism is merely the side-effect of business doing whatever it takes to keep a readership. Alas, independent writers will find this rule applies to them as well. A writer doesn't �exist� without readers. He might write, but he'll be the proverbial tree falling in an empty forest if he doesn't have readers to listen to him. Every writer, as far back as Plato, has been only one half of what he is. Whether you're a business publishing magazines, or Billy Bumfuck with a modem, your writing is a side-effect of what you want to be.

The final sentence has even more punch (go read it).

Steven Den Beste responds with a similarly provocative piece, which adds a model or two to the mix and, like Chris's piece, also focuses on readers. As Steven concludes,

If you're putting your material online, then it means you want readers. And for that we all are sluts, at least a little.

And there's at least one more model of web publishing which has been neglected, and that's the web as self-advertisement. My friend Michael Duff (Jaffo), who has thought and written about these matters for longer than most, describes that model (which is aimed at specific readers, not for readership for its own sake) in a recent journal entry (go read it):

Some web sites are explicitly designed to sell their creators. Pjammer does this openly, showcasing his writing on Livejournal. This is a uniquely honest form of marketing. PJ is setting himself up as a media personality. You may be discussing intimate things like relationships, racism, or stories from childhood, but ultimately, this communication occurs in a limited context. Selective vulnerability, carefully structured so it doesn't cross the line.

All of these writings follow a couple of emails that had already started me thinking about my purposes here and about how explicit one should be about those purposes. For example, a gentleman emailed me a few days ago that he was disappointed because I had linked to something in another blog critiquing one of his arguments, but I had not linked to his followup. Now, I had not seen his followup (busying myself with local politics instead), but my immediate thought was "It's not my purpose here to link to everyone; it's a selective blog." However, I've not stated that anywhere explicitly (though I think it's pretty strongly implied), and I did ultimately blog the followup (but not the riposte to the followup. *sigh* Lesson: don't blog personal bloggers who are critiquing other personal bloggers) because it was just easier that way. And thus, for the first time really, a reader changed my normal state of affairs here. Odd.

An email from a fellow blogger and reader preceded that instance, and really started me thinking about the topic last week. Here's an excerpt:

Over the past few years, I've watched several blogs gradually shift from a list of interesting articles the person happened to encounter that day into a self-conscious portal and republishing outlet. At what point along this continuum does the author acquire a responsibility to his or her readers? . . .

I think that each blog author should make his or her selection criteria explicit. Do you simply link things you find interesting? Things you believe to be true? Do you have a particular agenda or worldview to promote? If a weblog is not striving to be an unbiased source, like a city newspaper, the reader should be aware of this.

My answer was that I have acquired a responsibility to readers only to the extent I want to keep them, a theme of Wenham and Den Beste; however, I do feel obligated as a matter of SELF-honesty to correct what I feel are errors on my part. As far as selection criteria -- does a blogger really owe that to readers, or should readers be expected to engage in a bit of critical thought if they really want to know?

At some point, I suppose I will add something to the disclaimer page that I do not strive to be an unbiased source of news. I blog articles I find interesting. I blog articles according to a worldview (and some might even call it an agenda). I sometimes blog articles solely because they raise certain questions for which I do not have answers, or are written particularly well. I am not interested in always presenting all sides of an issue (but google is handy for that). I am very much interested in readers who "get" all or some of what I'm up to, and wish they would stop lurking and drop an email. I suppose that makes this site a variant of Jaffo's "self-advertisement" model.

And now it's been stated explicitly.

[Posted @ 11:00 PM CST]