The Euroblog Symposium in Stuttgart last week is still leaving its traces in the blogosphere. I am particularly glad Philip Young added this post to his blog, reflecting some of the thoughts Prof. Betteke van Ruler (University of Amsterdam) shared with the Euroblog audience (picked up by Philippe Borremans here).
What I personally seem to recall from the panel debate at the end of the symposium in which Betteke van Ruler took part, was that she was a bit wary of the idea that blogs can create conversations. Her scepticism about blogs being able to change the world, is something which I (and just about anybody present at Euroblog, I guess) tend to share. And I see her point on many other aspects of the blogging phenomenon too. But I am not with her entirely when she states that blogs are not about conversation but about individual thoughts, possibly leading to one or two one-liner comments.
The latter is true in some, if not many cases, mind you. But as blogs are becoming a more and more familiar phenomenon, this seems to be changing. My experiences are that not everybody who reads a blog, leaves a comment. But numerous are the times that people tell me they have read something on this blog, at which point they start a conversation about the topic. Now that is, as far as I am concerned, an excellent way of blogs leading to conversation too. Even my wife, who just happened to appear more or less accidentally on this blog, tells me she has had a great many fun conversations. About her hairdo, yes. But this is often just the small talk we need to break the ice.
Talking about small talk: it is also Betteke van Ruler's belief that new media, like the TV once was and social media are today, do not necessarily do more than create more opportunity to have "backyard oriented" chitchat. They do not necessarily teach us more than we already knew, nor are they the window to the world they could be. That is true. But do they have to be? At least, do they have to be all the time (although I agree that TV certainly should be a bit more often - to put it mildly)? And is conversation only conversation when it transcends the small talk level? I am not sure: small talk is, as far as I can tell (and I am not a sociologist nor a psychologist - in fact I don't think I am any kind of 'ist' at all) an integral part of human interaction. A lubricant towards deeper thoughts. Let's not underestimate the importance of that... Don't you think?
([photo via OXO-world]
