This post is part of the A to Z 2020 Challenge. I have decided to theme the posts around personal and societal responses to the Covid 19 crisis, including my resumption of Blogging!
So there it is – Hit or a Miss? You decide…
Spoiler Alert!
If you are a Blogger who thinks that Vloggers are the spawn of the Devil then I must warn you that this post contains a Vlog post – by yours truly – but fear not, I am not going to become a regular Vlogger, this guest appearance is only in the interests of exploring the difference between the two phenomena – Blogging and Vlogging…
Appearances
Have you ever wondered how your favourite Bloggers look? In some cases, (including myself) they do provide a thumbnail or even a proper picture of themselves such as the writers Sharon Cathcart or Sarah Zama. I have a confession to make – my thumbnail is at least a decade old but I feel it strikes the right note – so it stays – if you want to see me now you will have to watch the Vlog… But there are others – and I am not criticising – such as my most faithful visitor, commenter and my mentor for promoting this blog – Frédérique at Applique Patchwork Quilting who remain a mystery. Frédérique has become a voice without appearance in my head and it is strange that we should apply that term to written words and that is one of the things that I want to explore by comparing blogs and vlogs.
Crossover
My first post in this A to Z 2020 Challenge was about Alistair Cooke and I suggested, that because he first wrote down and then read out his iconic “Letter from America”, Cooke should be considered the prototypical Blogger and in recording his blog he made crossover to broadcasting – first Radio and later TV with his series “America”. Vlogging is the screen crossover child of blogging for the generation who hardly watch TV but get a lot of their screen leads from YouTube.
What is a Vlog?
Just like its progenitor, the Blog, the Vlog is, at its simplest, a dated video post. Like blogs, vlogs have many uses, diary, business tool, marketing, educational, documentary, political message but they differ from blogs because they each have different strengths and weaknesses.
Vlogs are visual and their authors (if blogs can have a voice, then videos can be authored) have to be seen – so not for the shy and self-conscious. in fact vlogs have been analyzed for “personality traits such as Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience.” (Wikipedia) Since we humans learn in so many ways, then for some, video is a far more effective way to learn (or just be entertained) whereas others learn (or enjoy) the written word better. Surely the vlog conveys much more than the words that are spoken – the non-verbal cues are equally important and anyone who hs watched a nerd with a personality void give a video post about something technical will know what I mean. Text is notorious for being unreliable at conveying tone – short texts between people in particular but at least with a blog, we have longer pieces in which to develop our message and over the course of following a particular blogger, we get to recognize more accurately their “voice” and their stance through the choice of words, content and style.
This post has already included several links to other parts of the internet and this is more difficult to do on a vlog or indeed TV broadcasting – how many times following a TV programme – even drama, have we heard over the credits – “If any viewers have been affected by the issues raised in the programme – please go to our website for links to support you…” On the other hand a blog is limited to still photos or embedded videos to show the reader things with a flow – but then again – you can always go back to that link in a blog.
The Best of Both Worlds…
Perhaps the most effective way of managing content, if neither blogging nor blogging conveys everything you need to say, is a combination – a blog with a vlog embedded – that way you can put all the links, the carefully polished words into the blog whilst including the more emotional, personal, non-verbal communication into the vlog element.
To test this, I am going to take a leap into the dark, or considering that I will reveal myself, warts and all, a leap into the light by posting a vlog right here…
And Frédérique, there is something especially for you…
So there it is – Hit or a Miss? You decide…
You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!