As an Arsenal fan, it can be hard to come by in-depth analysis and coverage about my favourite club in traditional media.
Newspapers and magazines naturally have to take a broad, all-encompassing approach to the coverage of football, putting in match reports and news articles that are written from a neutral viewpoint.
But with new media comes new opportunities to have a specialized voice. Writers can write about exactly what they want.
This allows websites like Arseblog and Gunnerblog to have a very specific focus. They are blogs dedicated solely to the coverage of news, matches and other matters Arsenal-related.
This means that Arsenal fans have a clear place to go to get their fix of Arsenal-related news and comment pieces.
Without the lack of bias that the editorial constraints of a newspaper or magazine bring, the bloggers are free to inject humour and their own voice into their pieces, and on occasion, be as hilariously tongue-in-cheek biased as possible.
Take this comparison between Soccernet and Arseblog as an example of how a blogger can put his own spin on a news story:
Soccernet
Arsenal have confirmed that midfielder Alexandre Song has signed a new long-term contract with the club.
Arseblog
The club officially confirmed that Alex Song has signed a new contract which will keep him at the club until 2014, apparently. 2014 seems like a ridiculously futuristic date to me.
I know it's only 5 years away but if I cast my mind back to when I was a lad, kicking a football around Bushy Park in the 80s, the whole idea of 2014 would have conjured up ideas of all kinds of awesome technology - and I don't mean iPhones or really thin laptops.
I mean flying cars and robot butlers who can make delicious meals with voice commands and houses that talk to you and transporters like Star Trek. You know, properly cool stuff, and not just regular cars which look a bit nicer and have a bit of a computerised display. Car manufacturers suck.
I feel that this illustrates clearly how new media offers an interestingly innovative way of letting people get exactly what information they want, in an intriguingly presented fashion.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Shea! Arseblog. Hahahahaha. On another note, Arseblog (again, hehehe) is a great example of how writing for new media is a whole other ball game compared to writing for traditional media. Limited by the analog printing press, traditional media must include stories of greatest mass interest in a generic edition. Once filled, content of interest to some or perhaps even one reader are unfortunately discarded. With new media, however, the common product for all is replaced by individualization -- yay!
ReplyDelete-- Tan Su Yi Kay 0703121D T04
Hey Shea! That Arseblog post is hilarious, even though the writer veered off track and talked about cars instead of football! It's weird how new media can lack journalistic skills like relevance but be appealing at the same time. I suppose readers forgive and appreciate online writing even when it has grammatical or other editorial mistakes - simply because the piece offers an individual's 'own voice' on a subject.
ReplyDeleteHi classmates.
ReplyDeleteKay: Yup, while newspapers have to cover as broad a range of topics as possible, new media allows for glorious, soaring individualization. Empowering the individual with a loud voice is perhaps one of the things to be celebrated the most about new media.
Aubrey: That was precisely my point. He can veer "off track" and digress as far as he wants - it is his blog and he is entitled to it. It adds a dash of colour to what would otherwise be a rather generic-sounding piece of news, enlivening it for us readers.
I agree with Aubrey, I think this is a really good way of posting news, because I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of readers who don't really want the news in such a serious way. For example, I don't like to watch and read news for that reason. It's boring when it's so serious.
ReplyDelete