Writelife

I came across a post Stuck in the old paradigm in so many ways (on Strange Attractor) and it led me to Globe editorial: Good until that last drop (on Joho the Blog) and in both cases I was puzzled by the reference to MSM.

At first I thought it was a typo and they meant MSN, but that didn’t make any sense in the context of what the posts were discussing. And to be honest, I quickly figured out they meant mainstream media. It’s the first time I’ve come across this acronym but I get the sense that for a lot of bloggers it may be quite common – I see David Weinberger has a Technorati tag for it.

But here’s the thing: why should I have to stop to figure out what it means? How hard is it to type mainstream media? In one of the two posts, they actually do refer to mainstream media at the end. Why not at the beginning? Why not write something like, “Blah blah blah MSM (mainstream media) …” and go from there? You can still use MSM if you want to, but at least I know what it means now.

I’m not complaining about the posts and what they were about (the mainstream media’s perception and understanding of blogs). I generally agree with what they had to say though, frankly, I really don’t care what the mainstream media thinks of blogs or what bloggers think of the mainstream media. And in writing their posts, I’m sure their first concern wasn’t who knew what MSM referred to - most of their audience probably does know.

But I work in an industry plagued by acronyms and it’s one of the bees in my particular bonnet. When you refer to something like MSM your reader has to know what those letters refer to. If you refer to mainstream media, even if the reader has never encountered the term before, the words carry enough meaning that the reader has some sense of what you are talking about. Acronyms restrict your audience. Words can expand it. With acronyms, you end up preaching to the choir. With words, you have the potential to reach the world (well, at least a few more people than just the choir).

Now, having said all that, I suppose I also have to admit that if people didn’t use acronyms I’d probably be out of a job. I spend a good deal of my days translating what others have written (including the innumerable acronyms) into words the rest of us can understand.

Still … I really can’t stand bloody acronyms!!! 

Tag: Blogs

Listen to this podcast

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites