Blogging is essentially an informal web journal, in which the author can write about any topic that he pleases. The blog can focus on personal topics, such as one's own life, academic, political, or several other topics. Simply put, a blogger is not limited in what he can discuss on his blog. Blogging differs from other forms of writing in its flexibility; by it's nature, blogging allows for an informal style of writing different from academic journals. Blogging also tends to be extremely biased as the blog is influenced by the author's own opinions and experiences.
There are several blogs out in the blogosphere that treat economics as their main subject. Here are three of them:
1. The Economist
The Economist actually has a collection of several blogs, ranging from regional blogs (such as a blog focused purely on China) to blogs on the financial markets. Of particular note is the blog Free Exchange, which has a focus on global economic fluctuations and policy analysis. What is good about Free Exchange is that beyond its policy analysis, it gives recommended reading in economics in the form of links daily. The Economist, and Free Exchange post daily.
2. Freakonomics
The beauty of Freakonomics and its associated blog lies in the wide range of topics it is willing to discuss. Also what makes Freakonomics such a good blog is its associated podcasts, which give just a little bit more of the hidden side of everything. The blog has daily posts.
3. Knowledge Problem
Knowledge Problem focuses mostly on energy markets. While it is not as regular as Freakonomics or the Economist in its posting, it still is a good blog for getting good analysis on a specific and highly important market.
I was interested to hear that Freakonomics has several blogs associated with it, it will be useful for anyone to delve a little deeper. After clicking around on the Knowledge Problem, despite the bias problem you noted above, it seems to be a fairly balanced blog. Your definition of blogging was also very thorough.
ReplyDeleteYour description of “what is a blog” was very thorough and well thought out. I really enjoy some of the articles that I have found on The Economist, but I am not familiar with the other two blog sites. After looking through their site, I really enjoyed the diversity and focus on experimentation associated with the Freakonomics blogs that I read. This was a pleasant surprise to me as I was unaware that they had created a blog segment.
ReplyDeleteStephen, this looks great. Try putting your blogs in a link list or blogroll in the sidebar or a footer so you can find them more easily later. I hope you enjoy reading and writing this semester.
ReplyDeleteThanks professor. Also, the blogroll is there on the side, I believe. If you hover your mouse over the dark portion of the right side of your screen, a sidebar will pop out. The top item, "My Blog List" is Google's gadget for the blogroll. I'll try changing the appearance of the blog so that it's easier to see.
ReplyDelete