Finding an ideal place to express one’s thoughts and tap the thoughts of others
By: Hilary Parker
To blog or not to blog was never the question for Princetonians who realized that the blogosphere is the ideal place to communicate their thoughts on everything from the shortcomings in Princeton’s dating scene to the shortcomings in U.S. foreign policy.
Bloggers need only two things Internet access and something to say to contribute to a blog (short for Weblog, which is, at the most basic level, an online journal), either through writing their own posts or commenting on what others have written. And local residents as diverse as the blogs they read and write have found that the virtual space of the blogosphere fulfills many of their needs, from keeping in touch with friends to challenging their minds.
"It’s up-to-date," said Robert Braun, a junior at Princeton University and editor-in-chief of Princeton Progressive Nation, a magazine whose online edition www.princetonprog.com is a blog that he said can respond to and comment on issues much quicker than the print edition.
"Another great thing about blogging in general," he said, "is that it allows people who may not have the financial resources to still comment and to still engage people and have people listen and read their political opinions."
While Mr. Braun gets some of his news from blogs including Daily Kos, Swing State Project and Talking Points Memo, he is quick to point out that he doesn’t read them in lieu of traditional newspapers, but in addition to them. His interest in blogging has led to an independent research project for his bachelor’s degree in sociology that will focus on the polarizing effects of political blogs.
As a politically active member of the Internet generation, Mr. Braun is, in many ways, the epitome of a "blogger."
Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs, is anything but, and yet she is a regular blogger at TPMCafe www.tpmcafe.com a companion site to the Talking Points Memo blog that Mr. Braun reads on a daily basis.
"It was clear to me that if I wanted to be communicating with my students, blogging was going to be more effective than writing for mainstream media," Dr. Slaughter said. "They live online. It is as much as part of their daily information fare as newspapers are for my generation. It’s a big generational divide, and I wanted to be part of that information stream," an information stream that she said will continue to rely on mainstream media, as bloggers often comment on and link to articles posted on newspapers’ Web sites. She stressed the need for newspaper articles to remain free and accessible to bloggers, who will ultimately help expand their readership.
In her twice-weekly entries, Dr. Slaughter posts everything from reactions to the day’s news to links to things she finds interesting, and she is at work on longer pieces about basic foreign-policy principles that will help clarify issues for readers. Her posts are intricate and information-laden, but for her, the blogosphere is more than a way to communicate facts.
"It’s about more than information," she said, "It’s about creating intellectual communities at a time when many of us feel increasingly isolated in our physical communities." For Dr. Slaughter, the blogosphere even lets her escape, albeit briefly, from what can be the isolation that results from being a dean in an ivory tower.
"In my day job, I don’t encounter many people who disagree with me as violently as many of the anonymous commenters on the blog," she said, laughing. "It’s quite refreshing to be told that you don’t know what you’re talking about if you’re in the kind of position I’m in."
Although TPMCafe is widely read and created for readers far and wide, many bloggers, such as Matthew Milliner, write blogs as a way to keep in touch virtually with actual friends both near and far. Mr. Milliner, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Art and Archeology at Princeton University, began his blog in 2003 while earning his master of divinity degree at Princeton Theological Seminary.
"I try to keep it somewhat local," Mr. Milliner said, "to keep up with friends from college," but the more than 32,000 hits on his blog counter prove that, although he never actively advertised his blog, his readership has grown over time. Nowadays, his entries range from commentary on news articles to new CDs, and he often continues his academic pursuits on his blog, though in a more relaxed manner.
"I use it as a way to enter into an academic debate without having to use the formal academic language and without having to use formal recourses of academic journals," he said. "I can make points that don’t have to play by the rules of the journals."
Just as Mr. Milliner uses his blog to comment on his day-to-day experiences as an academic at Princeton, Andrea Michalski uses her blog to comment on her experiences in the nightlife of Princeton.
"I just had all these stories," said Ms. Michalski, a historic preservationist and avid conversationalist. She started her blog a year and a half ago after tiring of telling her different friends the same stories time and again over AOL Instant Messenger, and her online profile at the AOL Instant Messenger site links directly to her blog.
Her blog is not a journal proper where she bares her innermost soul, however, and the comic entries tend to recount her experiences matter-of-factly, albeit humorously.
"I think of it more as storytelling," she said of her blogging hobby, which offers readers a glimpse of her laugh-out-loud outlook on life and love. And, in her quest to make people laugh, she’s discovered the best fodder "The dating scene," she said, "I find that the funniest."