*Blogging: blagging its way to the top? (feature idea)

Blogging is all the rage. Everyone seems to be doing it. The papers are making their correspondents do it, local papers are getting readers to do it, we on the journalism course all have to do it, but does anyone actually read them?

Blogging, to my mind, is more miss than hit. I know few people who read them. The attention blogging receives is massive though. Is it a case of surfing on a non-existent wave? Is the demand for blogging really out there or is it a case of a lot of hype forcing media to embrace it when in actual fact the demand is not really there?

The direction blogs should take has been argued over both indirectly by the different lecturers and directly between us, but is any form of blog more effective than another?

To answer these questions I would hope to be able to get in contact with some of guest speakers. Richard Burton had very strong opinions on blogging and these could be contrasted with the thoughts of Iain Dale. Sarah Radford could give a local perspective. I would also like to get in contact, if possible, with blogger’s Peter Foster, Nick Robinson and Daniel Finkelstein to get their opinion. I think it would also be interesting to find out from the various online editors of national newspapers how much weight they put on blogs and how successful they are. The Sun for example does not give a lot of attention to their blogs, where as The Times and The Guardian do.

A poll of my own around Cardiff could give a representative stat of the number of people viewing blogs. A section of this poll could form a good vox pop.