What I Want To Blog About and Blogger's Profile

My proposed theme that I wish to focus on this semester via my blog postings and subsequent papers is the trends in interpersonal communication and what the effects these trends have on society are; i.e. what effect does the emergence and focus on mediums such as Twitter, texting, social networking sites etc have on interpersonal communication within our society. After researching blogs that addressed this topic, I chose to profile a blog titled “Trends in Communication,” whose subject matter is described as a “conversation about social media, PR, and journalism.” The blog is written by Ian Roberts, who describes his relation to the field as a “social media evangelist with over 30 year experience in Australian PR and journalism.” Ian Roberts “location in the field” is in Newcastle, Australia, where he “established this Blog as a central point for comment and discussion by communicators about on line PR and the developments surrounding social media.” Roberts posts every few days, with time between posts ranging from two days to about a week. In regards to the popularity of the blog, I had trouble finding out the blogs particular rank or exactly how many hits the blog receives daily, but due to the fact that Roberts consistently posts every two or three days, I would assume that the traffic to his site must be fairly constant, therefore leading to his motivation to post fairly often.

The two most interesting posts that I found on Roberts’ blog were titled “Truly remarkable statistics” (http://timeschange.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/truly-remarkable-statistics/) and “Business world is getting social media” (http://timeschange.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/twitter-attracting-professionals/). Although both posts are very short, they offer hard figures regarding the ever-growing widespread popularity of Twitter as a communication tool and the latter post addresses an even bigger phenomenon: that “Twitter is also attracting strong usage by the 55 to 64 year old audience –a remarkable step for a social media tool."

This blog relates very well in regards to the topic that I wish to blog about this semester in that it focuses on the new mediums of interpersonal communication and how their growing popularity is changing how our society communicates. Roberts utilizes facts and figures from other web resources in his posts which help to add to his credibility and relevance of his postings. I would definitely describe his posts as academic because he is not just stating the facts regarding the changes that are occurring in interpersonal communication but rather he is making keen observations and coming to conclusions after he evaluates these facts. Roberts’ posts can also be characterized as professional because he is using his professional experience and background in this field to present his argument.

My main critique of this blog would have to be the lack of depth and length of the majority of his posts. Most all of his posts are very short and concise, which works to maintain clarity for the reader but it also does not provide much of an in-depth analysis. I feel that lengthening the content of each of his posts would work to make his postings seem more scholarly and would also help to further his analysis of these ongoing trends. I would argue that the audiences of Roberts’ blog are interpersonal communication scholars and any member of the population interested in the direction that communication in our society is heading. Anyone who is interested learning more about using Twitter, social networking sites, etc may find Roberts’ blog useful in that it explains what a powerful tool such mediums can be and also attests to the growing importance these tools have in our social landscape.

This blog might feed my work in that I can use the topics of his posts as a springboard for ideas to write about on my own blog and I could use the figures that he finds as support for my own observations. My site will differ in that I am not interested in what direction journalism is heading, a topic that Roberts covers on his blog, but rather I will focus on trends in interpersonal communication and how these new tools are affecting our communication with each other, not on how we are communicating widespread news. The posts on my site will also be much longer and in depth in comparison to Roberts as I feel that greater length is necessary in order to effectively address a topic.