One of my all time favourite movies is V for Vendetta. The story is of a person by the name of V, who in a totalitarian state of England tries to oppressive administration structure. There are several quotes from the movie which constantly linger in my mind, but one of the favourite goes "Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth".
All of us are opinionated. All of us have dreams and ideas we wish to speak of, and ideals which we want to spread. Be it dreams of better education, cleaner environment or random rants, some of us have ideas, but don't have a voice.
With the widespread use of the internet, the tables have turned. There is ample opportunity for people to express themselves. Newspapers which were previously mostly one way, now entertain comments by readers. Journalism itself, which was previously limited to trained professionals has now come to the hands of simple folk, who are armed with the simple knowledge of putting something up on the internet.
How can you make your voice heard? How do you get people to hear and respond to what you have to say?
One of the most effective and wide spread ways, is to use a blog. The word "blog" originates from Web+Log. An online personal or community journal which is frequently updated. A collection of blogs which are loosely linked to eachother by some common factor is referred to as a "blogsphere". For example, the collection of all Sri Lankan "bloggers" is generally referred to as the "Sri Lankan blogsphere."
So how does one start a blog? Before that, it's advised that one reads a couple of blogs to get an idea of how different blogs function. Blogs such as my one (http://www.dinidudealwis.com), Indi ( http://www.indi.ca) and Deane (http://deaned.blogspot.com) are more of personal blogs, which talk about political and other issues. Then there are the blogs such as London Lanka and Drums (http://londonlanka.blogspot.com) and Gutterflower (http://thegutterflower.blogspot.com) which combine a bit of humour and creative writing.
But one of the most interesting types of blogs, are the anonymous blogs. Cerno (http://cerno.wordpress.com) and Chaar~Max (http://chaarmax.wordpress.com) are bloggers who are anonymous, and write about social issues among other things.
And if you want to see other users of blogging, and Sinhala and Tamil blogging in action, visit the favourite Sri Lankan aggregator, Kottu (http://www.kottu.org). Kottu syndicated a vast collection of Sri Lankan blogs, updating itself with the newest posts from the list of blogs which it has.
Yes! Now I want to blog. How do I do it?
If you want to start your own thing, you need to set up a blog. This can be done at any blog platform. Wordpress (http://www.wordpress.com) and Blogger (http://www.blogger.com) are two of the most popular platforms.
You can visit either site, and create a user profile, select a name, address and a basic look for your blog, and then you're ready to go. The registration process requires an email address, so if you wish to be truly anonymous, then you can visit a free email provider such as Gmail (http://www.gmail.com) and get an email address under your chose pseudonym.
Once you've started to speak, you need to make yourself heard. There are several ways of doing this. One of the most effective is to enlist your blog in an aggregator like Kottu. This can be done easily by emailing the administrator of the site.But as any other media, along with great power comes great responsibility. This means that you should be responsible in what you write about. Remember that what you write is read by a wider audience. Online bullying or personal hate attacks should be kept at home, and a self developed set of ethics should be enforced. Just like talking to someone, be responsible for what you write.
Happy and safe blogging. |
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