Post-response is a digital reincarnation of the genre of journalistic discussion. Traditionally, this genre was considered "newspaper", but, in fact, it is much older than the mass media ( correspondence of Ivan the Terrible and Andrei Kurbsky ), and the press itself.
In the print press, this genre has flourished: the brightest examples of such public discussions have contributed to the history of journalism no less than the best solo publications - if not more. People still remember Herzen ’s polemic with Chernyshevsky - even if they have not read any of their publications. Probably because any bright article was doomed to develop into a discussion. Whereas articles that are not able to cause discussion have been forgotten.
With the digitalization of communication, the print press began to fade away - and with it the format of a journalistic discussion came to naught.
At the same time, another, completely new, previously non-existent genre arose online: the commentary genre.
It was possible to respond to the publication in different ways before. But never - so that her entire audience had the opportunity to see this answer in the same place.
The difference between “let me answer your detailed thought outlined in the publication form in the same form” and “let me answer your detailed thought stated in the publication form in the form of a signature to it” is fundamental.
But, unfortunately, not from the point of view of biology. The depth and thoroughness of the response depends on the strength of the release of dopamine - the hormone of motivation. And then the psyche will already select the least expensive of the available ways of translating the desire. In the pre-Internet era, those who had such an opportunity, in response to the publication that affected them, posted their publication. Those who did not have letters to authors or editors.
With the Internet, people had the previously absent opportunity to answer “on the spot”, right in the signature of the publication. From the point of view of the psyche, there is almost no difference, the feeling of satisfaction from the answer is almost the same. Thus, a simpler option takes advantage.
In aggregate, the extinction of the press and the appearance of comments led to the fact that couples - the desire to answer - more often began to go off the whistle, in the comments - even when a person really has something to say. In the era of commentary, any discussion runs the risk of being mothballed within the same post, while some responses themselves are pulled to the post or require a post.
Many will say that this is good - all the information relevant to the post is in one place, providing continuity (connectivity). But the flip side of this convenience is to limit the discussion to the number of people who read the original publication. If a post was read by a thousand people, then the number of people who saw the answers to it will also be limited to this thousand.
Whereas the return post can be seen by people who missed the original publication. Thus, more people will learn about it - more people will be involved in the discussion of the topic as a whole, more information will be digested, more opinions will be voiced, more ideas will arise and more decisions will be made.
A post-to-post exchange of exchanges, united by a linking in a chain of publications on one topic, even out of two, not to mention more posts than two, and participants than two in a chain - this is another level of communication that adds a huge amount of added value compared to simple comments.
Why is it still such a rarity on the Internet? Yes, all because of the same coherence: a response publication may involve new participants in the conversation, but may be missed by the old ones. And if someone later comes across a discussion of an already “rotten” publication, then he can skip the development of history if it is not displayed in the comments.
Post-answers to the "Picaba" kill two birds with one stone, solving both the problem of connectivity and the problem of limitation.
- Now the discussion, which has grown into several posts, will not be lost in space, because the answer posts are visible in the comments to the original.
- At the same time, a discussion of any topic interesting enough for someone to want to speak on it in a separate publication will attract more attention, not limited to the scope of the original record.
The genre of journalistic discussion is relevant today as before. Just the extinction of the paper press deprived him of his former platform, and the ease of commenting led to the fact that his lack of online was trivially overlooked.
His digital return is great news; moreover, not only for Picabu users, for example, with the response posts of which, I hope, other sites organized by the principle of a collective blog (wink-wink, deniskin ) will now follow.