Blog journalism advantage/disadvantage

Advantage

Advantages of blogging depend on the objective of the blog weather it is for universal subject or personal subject. Some people prefer to stay at home and reading online articles rather than newspapers. Blog is easy to access and mostly available as free to the readers. It is also easy for journalist to post his/her writing while on vacation. Journalist were offered convenient interfaces to write and organize their posts in the blog. In the nutshell, it is convenient to use anywhere (Keeble, 2005)

(a) Anytime, anywhere, journalists nowadays are able to publish new blog posts using mobile phones. Their blogs can be fully viewed with the mobile phones just like they did with a normal web browser like (b). (c) It is easy to post new news and blog post. Most blog hosts offer simple user interfaces for blog post editing. A blog can be edited using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) as well, but this feature usually used by advanced users.

Secondly, Blog does not need to be print out to the readers as stated in the first paragraph. Hence, journalist would not have to worry about the column size, publication costs and other financial need to posts their articles. In fact, Journalist can get financial benefit by using the 'pay-per-click' system or allowing advertisement to be publish in their blog.

Disadvantage

The disadvantages of blog journalism can come in many ways. A website (Blogging: the new journalism, 2003) mentioned that blogging cannot be considered as journalism because of blog is opinionated, and mostly the contents are incoherent, biased, and little regard in the accuracy. Most of the disadvantage mentioned before were resulted from lack of research before writing a topic and ignorance to the correctness of information to readers. This could mislead the readers to believe in something diverted from the real issue. Professional journalist consider blog as a mockery to them because of the issue above (Burgh & Bradshaw, 2008). For an example, the 9/11 terrorist attacks draws readers to search for more information and news. Irresponsible journalist that report wrong information in blog might cause panic to the public. Most countries have their media law that control the rumors spread by the irresponsible journalist. As an example, Malaysia has its own Media law. Anyone who publish a journal that promotes hatred, and ill feeling about other races or other classes will be charged under Sedition Act 1948 (Act 15). Other than that, journalist will also be punished if he or she publish a statement that can lower the individual's (subject) reputation so that the public will shun her or avoid the person (Defamation Act 1957 (Act 286).

Some examples of blogs that often publish posts that criticizing the government. The posts inside these blogs are good in provoking the readers' thoughts, however, they should be careful of what they had read because most of the posts were based on personal opinions. 

Blog journalism issue in Malaysia

Blogging issues in Malaysia is a little bit complicated than the western countries. Others would have the opinion that freedom of speech was attacked by the Malaysian government. Malaysia is well-known to have its mixed culture society which leads to tension and vitality to the country. Sensitive issues in newspapers and web sites/ weblog were dragged to behind curtain to prevent misunderstanding such as the 13^th May 1969 incident (worst racial riot in Malaysia) and recently, the usage of “Allah” word issue in different religion media which leads to bombing of churches. Malaysia is strict to its press censorship works. One of the examples, Raja Petra Kamarudin was held and questioned by the police for posting articles that potentially induce racial hatred in his blog (Teaching Online Journalism, 2010). The impact of blog journalism in Malaysia might not be as hard as printed media (e.g. newspapers) because of its popularity is limited to certain group (computer literate& internet users). However, it can also give significant impact to the readers especially those who have their own blog too. Therefore, the Malaysian government is stricter to the media law than other countries (e.g. America and United Kingdom) to preserve the peace.

In addition to politically controversial blogs, there exists a wide range of Malaysian blogs that frequently contain political content but are not focused on political change. In other words, they do not, for the most part, address such issues as human rights, freedom of the press, or government activities. However, they do, challenge the by writing about subject matter not normally discussed in domestic public forums, including sexuality, women’s rights, religion, and legal and illegal substance usage.

Yet, in the Malaysian scenario, these mediators do not provide multiple perspectives and instead play a developmentalism role that avoids any serious critique of the existing state of affairs. In this kind of environment, blogging opens up at least a little space for critical information and dialogue up till now unavailable within the country about issues such as Bumiputra positive action policies, cronyism, press freedom, religion, government mega-projects, and environmentally destructive initiatives like the Bakun Dam and Broga Incinerator.