During my first year in the broadcast journalism course at Mohawk, one of my favourite classes (and perhaps one of the easiest) was Online Journalism with Wayne McPhail (sic). Its highlights included the analysis of new technology such as the iPhone, website design, and multiple new user-driven content sites. The class itself turned me onto aspects of the internet I’ve more or less been content to ignore.

 I used the internet primarily as a source of current, historical and theoretical information, and as way to violate international copywrite law. I’ve read the ravings and opinions of the various breeds of online poster, but have abstained from voicing my numerous opinions to the faceless masses of the online world. Because really, who cares what a 20 year old white suburban raised scofflaw has to say about anything?

 If your reading this, allegedly you do.

Believe me, its not because I don’t have the opinions to share, because I certainly can go on and on about mostly anything. But its the fact that others out there, in the cyberspace jungle, probably hold similar views and have more motivation to share them with you, the reader. I don’t know much of anything about professional sports, technology or automobiles, much less other such easily bloggable topics. Nor do I care to debate on matters of politics, ethics or activism, because these are ultimately fruitless pursuits.

What I could comment on could at worst bore you to tears and make you judge me as a loveable geek, or enrage you and cause you to give me a pariah’s brand.

Despite this, I’ve kept my mind open to the internet and how it has expanded and changed the position of a journalist in society and the industry. I think widespread access to the internet has changed our profession the most since the advent of the motion picture newsreal-its changed the way people percieve the world.

 Note that although I’m not particularly “into” the idea of writing blogs, don’t think I shun them. Indeed, during the early years of the War on Terror, “right thinking from the left coast” assured me that people out there did indeed share some of the opinions I had. They just expressed them in a way that was both more socially acceptable (hey, I’m just passionate, like all us Armenians)  and gathered an impressive online cult following. I could never do that. The internet has a strange power with its anonymous, worldwide nature. It gives us the power to say things we’ll never really have to answer for, to make wild accusations and not have to defend them in realtime. It can make you foolhardy, outspoken, and what does it lead to? Not much, really.

 I think that people who have something valuable to say owe it to the world to preserve it. In the advent of an authoritarian regime in Canada, God Forbid, be assured that the bloggers will have the last word. After all, there is a reason that the Chinese monitor Google and Iranian bloggers end up in secret prisons.

Enough of my thoughts on blogging, and back to what I hope to get out of this class. In short, maybe it can make me change my mind. After all, passion is motivation, and if I find the right outlet for the right issue it may just make a convert to an advocate of online journalism. Keep in mind that when asked what I thought of the subject in class, I said that the internet is the new print, and there is no excuse for not making pre-written content (for newspapers, magazines & the like) available online. I support easy access to this kind of content, especially after the print edition has been published-if its being made available for free, of course. In this way the internet and print can perhaps find common ground and give each other validity as forms of media.

One area that does interest me is the use of the internet to promote other products. The viral marketing campaigns for Lost and the new monster-horror film Cloverfield show that multimedia campaigns can both add to the story and help build hype for the product in question. Many of these campaigns have made use of blogs, youtube and flickr to carry out the concepts and represent true media integration.

 I hope this garbled communique has made some sense and given you some idea of the mindset I bring to this course. I appreciate the validity of the online citizen journalist…but will anything I write be more than a tear in a cyber-ocean?