|
Green Blogs
Welcome to Good Dirt Radio . . . reporting on positive solutions taking root.
Thanks to the internet and new technology, public relations and marketing types are in a scramble. The sheer numbers of media that have exploded in the past few years—podcasts, webcasts, webvideo, PDA’s, RSS feeds, blogs, wikis, the ubiquitous chat room—are diverse enough to keep any agency hopping. News and the way we receive news have changed dramatically and continue to evolve.
Corporate news organizations decide what news is broadcast-worthy. They filter information based on what draws the biggest audience, often promoting the economic and political agendas of owners and sponsors. As these traditional news organizations continue their top-down reporting, their audience has left their seats to huddle over their PDA’s and bang out another blog post. Green blogs better inform their audiences with social conversation and immediate impact. This promotes positive solutions that affect change in everything from solar toilets to social trends and energy use.
Such is the appeal for Diane MacEachern of BigGreenPurse.com:
MacEchern: My blog, Diane’sBigGreenPurse.com, really tries to focus on products and services that are available to women, that offer good options both from a consumer point-of-view and an ecological point-of-view and information that will help you as a consumer—a green consumer—make a decision in the marketplace or take an action. With the blog you can react immediately to a situation that happens in the marketplace and let people know there’s a need or an opportunity to take action so they can make a difference. So the blog is really a way—an opportunity—for instant communications.
That power of immediate communication is a driving force behind Blog Action Day, a new participatory event for bloggers and readers. According to the Blog Action Day Web site, over 20,000 blogs participated in 2007, with over 23,000 blog posts reaching some fourteen-and-a-half million readers.
Such outreach is remarkable, and Siel of greenlagirl.com responds to the sense of contact:
Siel: I think there’s a community that builds around it, that can be helpful so you don’t feel like you’re the only person doing this, there are other people who are interested, who want to do the same thing, who are on a similar path. I’m learning that a lot of people want to make changes, that a lot of people care, but I’m also learning that a lot of people seem to have real difficulty, sort of translating that awareness into real action.
There are solutions for that, hundreds in fact, and they’re all blogs. Keith Peters of carbonneutraljournal.com thinks that the proliferation of blogs supports the opportunity to foster change. His daily posts, include a weekly rant and kudos to those who have pioneered solutions, further motivating his endeavor.
Peters: Every day that I blog, I learn something new, and I love to pass on what I learn. When I started I committed to blogging for a year, and I thought it would be a chore. It turns out that keeping my blog running isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. There are amazing things going on, and it gives me great hope when I see other folks committing their resources and energy to solving our problems.
A sense of commitment and combined effort is strong in the blogging community. There's a perception of moving forward with each blogger filling an informative niche within the movement. And, since the internet is inherently a democratic structure, blogs that fail to provide valuable information allow the cream to rise to the top. This bottom-up process supports the tide change in public opinion, even when people live far apart or in large cities.
Siel: With blogs you get extremely specific, local, targeted information and a sort of local how-to guide, as well as a story that goes along with it, written by a blogger who has undertaken those challenges themselves. I think that’s what makes blogs useful, because people can look at that and feel personally connected, while also getting the specific tools to make changes in their lives on a local and personal level.
And that’s the point. Bloggers, whatever their subject or motivation, understand that by sharing their experience, others are encouraged to question and learn, empowered to take action.
For more information about these blogs or to learn how you can get involved, please check out our website at gooddirtradio.org.
I’m Tami Graham and I’m Tom Bartels. Thanks for joining us on GOOD DIRT RADIO, reporting on positive solutions taking root.
|
