Abstract
In the advent of social media, the profession of journalism has faced many challenges; at the same time, new and exciting opportunities have emerged. One of those opportunities lies in the possibility of closer interaction between the journalist and his or her audience. 1 The question is how the journalist could sufficiently utilize the interactivity of social media while maintaining journalistic integrity. The book uncovers this question with a comprehensible set of guidelines coming from firsthand experience.
One of the highlights of this book is the first chapter. Using an example blog post of their own, the authors effectively break down the “anatomy of a blog post.” (pp. 1-18) The example blog post is well-written, insightful, and most importantly, a nicely tailored post to illustrate each of the elements discussed in the chapter. Moreover, as the authors are prolific bloggers in their own right, the examples and guidelines are highly relevant and hold conventional wisdom.
As such, the authors confidently present rules to abide by for blogging. Due to the growing uncertainty about how to deal with the rapidly changing animal that is social media, the book actually grounds itself as the go-to resource for budding bloggers.
However, some of the strongly asserted prescriptions may be disagreeable, such as in their advocacy for long blockquotes. Blockquotes surely could be essential for providing evidence, but one must also think about the attention span of today’s readers and how to find the right balance of length versus brevity in today’s blogosphere.
The book and its chapters are divided into four main parts. The first two chapters define blog as a concept. Chapters 3 to 8 are tips and guidelines for writing. Chapters 9 to 11 discuss different types of blogs and their characteristics. Then the final chapter brings in a topic that is becoming increasingly important in social media communication: branding. Generally speaking, chapters in each part are cohesive and complement others. Taken separately, each chapter reads well with a consistent format and structure for students to follow. However, it may be difficult to follow or utilize the book to its full potential due to the way some chapters are arranged. This should ring true especially for educators, as the book dives into tactics and action items before discussing the types of blogs. Considering that topics, objectives and target audiences 2 should be valued even more in determining the content and strategies for new media, the book’s current organization may best be explored by visiting Chapters 9, 10, and 11 before probing Chapters 3 through 8.
That said, the book does an excellent job of defining the blog as a concept and providing useful tips throughout. Furthermore, an educator teaching in the field of digital communication and journalism will appreciate the following:
Interviews with successful bloggers: The book regularly features accomplished bloggers, providing each individual’s testimony and takeaways from their blog experience.
Real-life applications and/or examples to begin each chapter make the book relatable, especially for the journalistic minds who would value pragmatic value for society.
More examples from the two authors at the end of the book
Discussion questions and exercises that are highly specific and almost always explained thoroughly
Among some areas with room for improvement, or a caveat for the reader, is the relatively weak look into the notion of community. One of the most significant advantages for social media is community-building and audience engagement. 3 The authors do discuss some of this in Chapter 5 (“Striking up a conversation”), but mostly focus on strategies to attract and manage attention, not sufficiently the issues of conversation quality or embracing the feedback loop from the journalist’s perspective. 4 Similarly, branding, which is perhaps the most important element for social media, 5 only receives a cursory discussion from the authors. Lessons and tips for branding oneself in the highly competitive blogosphere may prove to be useful.
In addition, while most exercises at the end of each chapter are helpful, some of them can be difficult to implement in the classroom. They are multi-step and require much proactivity from the student, which might pose a challenge for undergraduates just starting to gain an interest in blogging.
All in all, however, the book remains grounded in the importance of journalism values and quality writing, principles that often get overlooked in the extravagance of social media. In addition, the book provides a history and background of blogs, which is always useful in understanding where we have been and where we are headed. In an era where unwarranted tips and strategies prevail in so-called “instructional” books, Leccese and Lanson provide a well-balanced mix of contexts from the past, successful tips of the present and strategies for the future.