Blogs: a media revolution?

11/08/2006

Some just don't "get" them, while others see the potential. Also this week: internet addiction, Albania and the EU integration process, and anti-corruption efforts in Bulgaria.

By Balkanblogs for Southeast European Times – 11/08/06

[Getty Images]

Do blogs breathe new life into journalism, or are they just another form of internet junk? BiHnet recently hosted a debate on this question, and responses were mixed.

"There are a lot of young talents in the blogosphere," said one commenter, while expressing disappointment with the blogging efforts of well-known journalists and writers. Another said he has yet to find a local blog that holds his attention for more than a few lines.

"Some persons have been given an opportunity to bore people in one more way... pure waste of traffic!" he writes.

Lelly at Buduca novinarka thinks blogs are useful, but favours those with a personal touch. "There are several blogs I read on regular basis, where people are simply writing about themselves. I have my own blog, but I mostly write about things bothering me ... it's simply a little place I visit often."

Writing from Serbia, meanwhile, Ivana diagnoses what sounds like a grave case of web dependency.

"I was horrified to realise that I'm an addict," she writes. "I'm not an alcoholic, smoker or drug addict -- I'm an internet addict. I sit here and instead of drinking coffee in peace and writing something I wanted to write, I'm opening and closing my Firefox every 15 minutes … I feel my head pulsing as a result of unnecessary nervousness.

"Even when I go to bed I have to open my cell phone and press a little blue letter i and go through e-mails, news, my blog, my bank account -- precisely my negative balance.... as if something important had happened in the last hour or two, or since the last time I connected.

"I'm thinking less and less about my vacation in November, and increasingly more about buying a new laptop ... People, is there a way to treat this?" Ivana asks.

Elsewhere:

Albanians should spend more time discussing the EU integration process, Mento Beqa writes at shekulli. Instead, whenever the subject comes up, "the debate is closed, as though it were a transcendental term -- incontestable, and a good sent by God to Albania." Commenting on his post, Ilir Avdiaj agrees that political leaders and the public at large need to change their attitude about the topic. "Integration by itself can't be the scope. The scope is the development of the country and in this direction our politicians should push more. "

But Bledar Zani feels confident this will happen as the Stablisation and Association Process continues. "People's awareness will become more important in the second phase," he writes.

In Bulgaria, Boycho Kamenov takes issue with Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev's assertion that it's up to the Bulgarian people to eliminate corruption. "This is true but not quite. The prime minister is right that it is up to us to stop corruption, but we will find it difficult to accomplish this because of the structure of government. The soil for corruption remains fertile first of all because the governance is not properly organised, to say the least. There is no need even to mention the government's special acquisitions orders and concessions by which the state actually legalises corruption."

"If as the prime minister says, we are to be successful in the fight against corruption, we must first look at our cumbersome system of government and put an end to the adoption of various enactments that practically legalise corruption," Kamenov writes.

And that wraps up this week's tour of the Balkan blogosphere. Join us next Friday for the next installment, and send your comments to info@setimes.com.