Since its birth 2years ago, blog has spreaded marvelously fast and now the number of bloggers recorded more than 10 million in Korea. Blog which started as personal journal has been developed as a personal medium and finally created the word 'Blog Jou...
Since its birth 2years ago, blog has spreaded marvelously fast and now the number of bloggers recorded more than 10 million in Korea. Blog which started as personal journal has been developed as a personal medium and finally created the word 'Blog Journalism'.So far, how much blog has grown up? In an aspect of journalism, what kind of role it is playing or it will be. Compared with traditional media, blog has totally different message delivery system as well as various message senders and contents. These characteristics made people expect blog as an alternative medium of tradition media.In the beginning of thesis, journalism was defined to discuss what can be called as journalism and what kinds of journalism exists. It might provide the theoretical frame to figure out journalistic roles of Blog. The basic role of media such as delivering messages, raising social issues and arousing public opinions will be fully explained.Also, other types of alternative media which generated with criticism of traditional media were discussed. The quantity of articles about blog from traditional media was surveyed to figure out how much existing media were interested in blog. Monthly and yearly survey about how many blogs were quoted by daily newspapers was followed to understand if blog performed journalistic roles. Articles which quoted blog classified by its contents and formats because it would help to figure out the journalistic role it performed.Research was conducted for 2 years from March 2003 to February 2005. In march 2003, Iraqi bloggers such as Salam Pax and 13-year-old girl, Charlotte Aldebron who wrote anti-war diary were introduced to Korea and blog became to draw people''s attention.The subject of research was limited to general blog, not news specialized one because the latter can be concerned as 'personal internet newspaper'. Traditional media were also restricted to 10 daily newspapers. These newspapers deal with all sections such as national politic, business, science, art and sports, Broadcasting news was excluded because its originality based on video so that it rarely use blog as news source.In conclusion, the numbers of blog and related articles in 10 newspapers have increased enormously. However, blog still stayed as private diary. Traditional media have not quoted blog as much as it was expected and even quoted articles were very limited to feature. On certain issues, bloggers either did not have enough information or were too subjective. It was not enough to be called as journalism yet.On the other hands, the result of survey did not underestimate the journalistic role of blog. Blog has shown limitation that it can overcome someday. Due to its prompt and simple message delivery system, blog can evolve anytime and certainly it has the potentiality.