PBA’11: Acknowledging The Achievements Of Bloggers

The numerous responses that the Pakistan Blog Awards, PBA’s Facebook page receives, sometimes overwhelms even our Admin with the warmth and zest of the writers who actively participate in all our online discussions. The discussions not only encourage us in our resolve to acknowledge and honor these bloggers, but also tell us more about how our audience feels regarding the Pakistan Blog Awards.

We are happy to say that the Pakistan Blog Awards has managed to do a lot more than just acknowledge some of the best bloggers in the country. As one of these bloggers, Ahsan Saeed put it, “I really focused much more on the blog, asked people to tell me more what to change or what to not, took it as a judge, changed many things internally… and best of all… learnt how to use Twitter well!”

The 2nd Annual Pakistan Blog Awards, scheduled to take place in December 2011, have been organized by PC World Pakistan in collaboration with YouTube/ Google as Presenter Partner, Nokia Pakistan as Lead Partner and Djuice as the First Lead Partner for the event. Dell and Intel will be Tertiary Partners for the event. Express Tribune, FM 89, Synergizer, Brandsynario, Newsweek Pakistan and Digispace are Media Partners for the event.

The Awards have had a huge impact on bloggers within Pakistan as well as with expatriate bloggers who like to write about their homeland. As one of our bloggers, Kanwal Anees Ahmed told us, again via Facebook, that she had been used to blogging even when she was living in Karachi. Moving abroad however, has ‘not changed her passion to write what she feels most strongly about.’

The Need To Have Blog Awards

Blogging, or ‘the new media’ journalism as it is sometimes referred to, definitely seems to us to be the future of the country and the world in general. And this is why we choose to have at least one platform, and one conference solely for the purpose of blogging. Pakistan’s pace online has been both rapid and impressive with a number of Pakistani bloggers gaining international recognition with their writing skills online also.

For this, the fact that you may express your opinion, uninhibited by any government restrictions online, is largely responsible. Considering the current status of Pakistan in the world, a large number of people are interested in finding more about the country. Actual facts and uninhibited reporting is what they really appreciate.

For their part, most of our bloggers have found their online spaces a more preferable point where they may easily propagate their points of view, talk about topics of interest to themselves and meet like-minded individuals without facing the same sort of censorship that one would have to face either on Pakistan’s print or electronic media platforms.

As another blogger, Anie Onaiza, commented on a Facebook discussion thread, she “wanted a platform where (she) could ask, questions, be politically incorrect, even offend when needed, but enable those who choose to use it, to appreciate (her) independence of mind.” Bloggers such as Bushra Rehan are happy with the way they can ‘share knowledge with people,’ and how ‘it gives her voice and opinions a good chance of being heard.’ For her, the “new media has been spreading awareness to a greater extent.”

Then again, blogging has allowed many bloggers the opportunity to explore topics they are truly interested in rather than have mass appeal. Awais Aftab, who likes to blog about ‘philosophical’ matters, finds this quality in the new media the most appreciable. Since his philosophical writings do not have enough mass appeal to make it to one of the popular print or electronic media publications in the country, Awais’  discussions may be found online where he feels comfortable with posting up write-ups ‘close to his heart.’

And it is the same with bloggers across Pakistan. They have discovered blogging as the perfect answer to connect and ‘talk to’ a large audience. Their passion has ensured that blogging thus becomes one of the most popular forms of communicating on a large scale with an audience. The Pakistan Blog Awards looks forward to now acknowledging the work of the best perpetrators of the new media for a second time. May the best bloggers win!

Click here, to follow PBA’11 on Facebook.