A couple of months ago, I helped out student Shannon Patraj with the first part of a research project on blogging. Now Shannon would like the help of readers of this blog with the next part of this research – by filling in this short five-question survey. The questions in it are especially applicable to writers:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KNFVYLX
The deadline for responses is Wednesday 20 February,* so it’s close – sorry for the short notice!
Shannon has provided the following context for the survey:
“I am studying Creative Media Production at the Higher National Diploma level, and one of the current units I am doing is Contextual Studies. The first assignment done on your blog, was to identify and demonstrate an understanding of the institutional context which impacts on its production.
There is a follow up assignment that has be built on the same media production as the first. Understanding of the product should be deepened by conducting various primary and secondary research methodologies. The research is to explore how consumers of the media product receive the chosen product using theoretical approaches.
This essay will be accompanied by a power point presentation in class to demonstrate a thorough understanding of what was written.”
I hope you’ll be able to fill in the survey and help Shannon out.
*The deadline was originally Sunday 16 February, but Shannon was subsequently able to get an extension.
*The deadline was originally Sunday 16 February, but Shannon was subsequently able to get an extension.
That was interesting! Made me think just why I do blog. Hope my answers are helpful 🙂
Thanks, Rachel!Personally, I blog for the fame, the glory, and the chance to look glamorous on the Webby Awards red carpet – a chance that, mystifyingly, has yet to come my way.But I don't think I'm supposed to answer this survey myself, so my silly answers don't really count 🙂
Whether for a survey or not I think it’s good to ask ourselves questions like this every now and then. I think for many of us the answer to why we blog is probably: habit. That would be those blogs who’ve lasted past the three months that’s supposed to be the lifespan of the average blog; I’m coming up on six years. The content too so often changes with time as we run out of things to say and have to go off and research stuff to keep our readers (and ourselves) interested. For the longest time I felt I owed it to my readership to post on a regular basis which, for a good three years was twice a week. That might not sound such a burden but my posts averaged out at about 3500 a pop, well, you can do the sums yourself. Some jobbing writings don’t churn out a thousand words a day! So I cut back. I had to. What really motivated me was the fact that I realised my readers weren’t nearly as desperate to read my articles as I imagined, in fact it was becoming a burden to them. If you have a blog then I agree that regular posting is necessary but once a week is quite sufficient. Okay, maybe having to wait a year for the next novel is a bit much—who’s to say they won’t get distracted by something shiny and forget about you?—but a blog a week is fine. A few of my friends only post weekly and I genuinely look forward to their posts and that’s the way it should be.
Thanks for your very thoughtful comment, Jim!My blog is of a similar vintage to yours – started blogging in late 2007. For a long time, my aim was to post twice per week (one of which is often a Tuesday Poem), then last year I dropped this to once a week. This year, I'm struggling to manage that.I want to keep my blog going, but in an increasingly busy life in which I also need some time off, there is often a direct competition between writing blog posts and writing creatively. Since the purpose of the blog when I set it up was to 'write about writing' – mine and others – and also, where appropriate, promote my own work, I usually choose getting new creative work written as the priority.