Blog Critique: "School's Out"

Today, the blog "School's out" is subject to my blog critique. This blog is important because it serves the wider community in Germany but also in particular students in Berlin. It consists of three people writing and participating almost everyday. The first blogger is Andrea Huber (hub). She is working for a newspaper "Berliner Morgenpost" which publishes this blog. The second blogger is Lena H. She is 15 years old and goes to school in Berlin. So does the third member of this blog. His name is Kevin (kk) and he is 17 years old.

The content are mainly news, discussions but also entertainment. Furthermore this blog has six categories which divide all articles and entry to a particular topic. The categories are 1. "Good School, Bad School", 2. "Question of the week", 3. "Chat- Forum", 4. "Scene", 5. "Good newspaper, Bad Newspaper" and 6. "Project log book".
The main theme is centered on school but not in the traditional way. The bloggers talk about issues before, during and after school and users comment on that. There are topics like 'What is your dream school', or a reasonable discussion about the smoking laws at schools. When I was at school I was allowed to smoke within a certain area in the school that was when I was just 16! This blog also discusses issues like racism at schools which is a very important topic.

The entire blog seems like a big forum and attempts to make school more interesting and important. Through this kind of advanced communication, the students get to know techniques I didn't even know they exist when I was that age.
A significant characteristic of this blog is the involvement of thoughts from old and young. The subjectivity of this blog is obvious because without any opinions discussions and forums would not make any sense. However, the bloggers are not subjects of censorship or persecution. The logical reason is because this blog simply deals with issues of students. Things that normally would not threat someone like the government. The style is informal and suitable for students. Although the design is confusing sometimes because this blog contains a lot of information.

The impact on the wider community is simply through their web side because this blog belongs to a big newspaper. On the homepage of this paper the user immediately has access to the web blog. The first entry was in January 2000 and the blog gained more and more article and comments per year. The participation became definitely much more throughout the last two years.

I think this blog is an important institution especially for young people. They are asked to contribute on things they are also involved in as well as they are challenged with technology.
Below I listed the hyper link.

http://www.morgenpost.de/z/plog/blog.php/schools_out