[bjc] Friday afternoon session 2

Bill K., on January 22nd, 2005 at 7:16 am Said:

Hey David:

I was at Yahoo! news and I see that AP has your picture along with a quote:

“Blogging is more like a conversation, and ‘you can’t develop a code of ethics for conversations,’ said David Weinberger, a prominent blogger and research fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. ‘A conversation with your best friend would become stilted and alienating.'”

But David, when you’re blogging you’re essentially broadcasting. You couldn’t do it if every reader commented on a post, requiring you to provide a response for each. So it’s not a conversation or even personalized speech. The ethics of broadcasting require that you don’t try to sway someone’s voting or spending habits when someone when you have a financial interest.

David Weinberger, on January 22nd, 2005 at 7:38 am Said:

My comment wasn’t taken out of context, but it’s also not the only thing I believe. I certainly don’t think that blogging should be an ethcs-free zone. I just don’t think anyone can come up with a single, universal ethical code for blogging because blogs are too diverse.

As for my attitude towards disclosure, I strongly agree with you and have a link to my disclosure statement permanently at the top of my blog.

I agree, Bill, that blogs aren’t conversations in the way that talking with someone over dinner is. And if you’re one of the handful of Big Time bloggers, you have too many readers to be able to respond to each. But for the rest of us, blogging is conversational not only because we can respond to every reader who responds to us but because the form of rhetoric is characteristically one of responsiveness not only to one’s readers but to other bloggers. So, I’m not saying the blogging is conversational in every regard and to every degree, but I find it to be a much better way to think about blogging than viewing it as a form of broadcasting or even publishing.

Seth Finkelstein, on January 23rd, 2005 at 2:11 pm Said:

Hmmm … I’d in fact say the opposite, that viewing it as a form of publishing is a much better way to think about it than conversation. Not all publication is Big Big Media. Fanzines, small weeklies, newsletters – these are publications too.

Note small-scale publications can be “conversational”, responding to other small-scale publications (fanzines are infamous for this dynamic).