December 22, 2010
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Counterpoint to "The Reader is Dead"
PolemicallyInclined left an excellent comment and counterpoint to my original blog titled "The Reader is Dead." I published the comment below. Thanks for an excellent discussion, you all, lots of interesting viewpoints.
"I don't know, I think I disagree - but this is perhaps because I just finished my Victorian Literature class in which I was required to read literature that entered a similar discourse: "We know well enough that this isolation of the individual -- this narrow-minded egotism -- is everywhere the fundamental principle of modern society [. . .] The disintegration of society into individuals,each guided by his private principles and each pursuing his own aims has been pushed to its furthest limits" (Engels) parallels your blog entry in general, but particularly your statements about youtube and the "commodization of entertainment."
However, readers are still here. People are still initiating discourses regarding pressing social issues. People are still telling stories and people are still critiquing those stories. People are still creating and people are still responding, albeit in different ways than before. Our society is in a state of flux, sites will rise and fall, there will be new ways of doing things -- and I don't think this should be translated into the death of the Reader.
I think the Reader is immortal simply because Readers are usually creators themselves. Take poetry for example - the art of it is still alive and well, even if it is not nearly as popular as it once was. However, (serious) poets and (serious) readers of poetry are often one and the same. The same thing with reading - ask any writer (particularly Stephen King), and they will say that if one wants to write, then one must read. I know that my brother, a recently graduated cinematographer, watches movies and television for the same purpose. As long as people create, there will be a "reader" -- always changing as society evolves.
If you were talking about blogging and the blogging community in particular - well, things change. It was blogs this time around, it'll be something else down the line. But, in that case, it is blogging that is dying - not the Reader, who is probably simply reading (and responding to) something else in a different medium.
(P.S. I think you initiate a sort of a paradox - you say that for every vlogger, there must a viewer, and then say that Youtube has no need for an audience. Hmm. Perhaps I am misunderstanding your point -- I am, after all, unfamiliar with participating in a youtube community, primarily using it to watch British shows that haven't skipped the pond yet to the USA. And I have no idea what Dailybooth is, so maybe I'm just out of the loop on this one.)"
Comments (4)
i'm not sure it's really this deep, though.
i think bloggers, themselves, are generally bad readers. you can't get traffic without being another person's traffic, first. it's like opening a store, and then wondering why no one knows about it when you just sit there and think having a presence means anyone will find you. you have to advertise and get the word out. if you want readers, then be one, first. and always. there aren't fewer people on the internet than before, so this isn't really about waning popularity of blogs, in general.
blogging isn't less popular; there are just more blogs to read. no one will skip reading something interesting, but only if they know about it. get readers by being a reader.
People dont like to read anymore either. If you do it has to be only as long as a facebook status or twitter update. I find that the internet makes ADD and less likely to read things I used to read. I used to be in online forums with poetry and short stories...i mean, its ugly how bad its gotten. Ive thought about just starting my own review blog about the memoirs I read just to keep my brain going!
I've always found blogs are a bad place to start your research. Instead, check the book stores, the news posts, and university libraries (public libraries, too, for that matter). The truth is, you have to read to learn something. You can't learn it all from video or skimming. And in those places, you'll find people who read. I love to read. I love to read blogs, actually, too.
With blogs, some people are just concerned with traffic so they'll leave a few lines that respond to whatever they skimmed just so they can get people to come back to their blog and hopefully do the same.
From a avid blogger's point of view, there definitely isn't any signs it is dying. I like what they first comment said: they're just more.
Thanks for the add, really nice (and rare) to see online blogs about sophisticated subjects such as Eng Literature. I'm actually surprised to see you discuss the concept of Reading, because it was a really uncommon concept to choose for study (at least it was for our Australian education syllabus). My class was the only class in the school to choose this as our topic for our school leaver's exam (and also 1 out of a few classes in the whole state). I remember approximately half of my classmates would despise this concept, but the other half were fascinated by it.
You might be interested in "A History of Reading" - Alberto Manguel. It's a terribly thick, boring book, but it provides almost every single idea on the concept of Readers in rich detail. It does become quite interesting to read after a while. Another thing which might interest you (particularly because it's related to the concept of reading as well as blogging), is the hypertext "Patchwork Girl" - Shelley Jackson.
Anyway ever since I graduated a few years ago, I have barely touched anything related to Eng Lit... haha thanks for reminding me about my favorite subject at school.
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