Sir Butch Dalisay wrote a few things about blogging in his column in the Philippine Star yesterday. He discussed a few points on what attracts people to blogs and blogging. These points include democracy, audience reach, anonymity and flexibility of blogs and blogging.

But what I particularly liked about what he wrote is this passage:

The question some people might raise is, yes, it’s a blog, but is it literature? Of course it is; it’s writing; you just can’t find it on a paper page. Whether it’s good or bad literature depends on what standards have yet to arise for this kind of literature, but I have a gut feeling that bloggers don’t particularly care; 90 percent of blogs may be a digital form of navel-gazing, but hey, it’s my navel. Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine, and that’s all there is to it, at least for now.

I delivered a paper on the same topic in our colloquium class this past semester though mine was more of a cursory look on blogging and literature. My conclusions with that paper is a question on how the Filipino creative writer exploit a flexible tool such as a blog to develop newer forms of writing. But Sir Butch puts it a lot more eloquently in his navel-gazing analogy.

Just sharing.

Check out these other posts:

1. A few new insights on blogging for literacy in the Philippine context
2. Language studies and blogging
3. Keeping it real: blogs and identity theft
4. What is mainstream media’s beef with blogging?
5. How do we define ‘authority’ in blogging?