One one level, having to deny that something is dead is evidence that a significant number of people thing it is, which is “dead” in pop-culture terms. And that’s true as far as it goes. But pop-culture isn’t everything. So on another level, the internet is filled with blogging. If you consider social media micro-blogging (and what else would you consider it?), then the internet is barely anything else.

What prompts this?

A Culture-War post on Ace of Spades last week contains the following-slightly off-topic comment:

9. Honestly, although people have been saying “blogging is dead” for years, I think maybe blogging is dead, and video commentary is the new blogging. Personally, I don’t think I have the desire to do that or the particular talents, but that seems to me to clearly be the only front that matters any longer.

This is also true as far as it goes. But I counter that video commentary – or vlogging – is just a different form of blogging. The idea of the blog – that any fool with an internet connection can create and publish content to the wide world – is not contradicted by the evolution away from text and to video.

I also disagree with the main premise. Blogging is still happening. Blogs still exist. People still read them. They may not be the exciting trend they were in 2003, when I got on Blogger for the first time, but they’re by no means gone. WordPress is not YouTube, neither is it MySpace.

What I suspect we’re going to continue to see is Blogging Plus, as in blogging AND vlogging/podcasting AND social media. The ways of reaching an audience are growing, but old ways of doing that do not vanish thereby. And if you doubt me, ask yourself how many people you know that still listen to the radio, a medium that’s almost 100 years old.

Happy blogging, everyone. In whatever way you do it.