by Eric Bailey

Created on: December 15, 2010

Those arguing that web content writing is legitimate writing are on the defense from those who would decry web works as being of poor quality, irrelevant value, and even ethically challenged. To an extent, these points are understandable; after all, the internet practically prides itself on being an unfathomably enormous launchpad for free thought expressed worldwide, with few filters or rules to govern what is said or in what manner.

From the self-crazed celebrity Twitter accounts to the innumerable boring blogs across the online landscape, is there truly room to posit that web content writing is legitimate writing? Perhaps the internet is a tool, like many others, and the utility of which is determined by the user, and must be judged on a case-by-case basis.

Skill Level

Although there is nothing stopping any angst-ridden high school student from posting dreadful poetry across his or her social media, there is also nothing stopping Pullitzer Prize-winning authors from broadcasting their insightful viewpoints to a broader audience. This is a case where “you must take the bad with the good,” and any rational human being would have to admit that both good and bad writing can be found across the digital realm. Good writing, inherently, is legitimately writing.

Paradigm Shift

The internet itself plays a provocative role in determining the philosophical conundrums of determining the worth of its content, as its own role has changed throughout the years. Once a specialized communications protocol only used by a handful of people, then the sole domain of gadget geeks and technology nerds, onward to being accessible by any well-to-do web-surfer with a personal computer, until it became part of the mainstream; and, with it, its features and websites. While blogging, message board posting, and other electronic-literary activities were once viewed with disdain, they are now avenues of communication enjoyed by the most well-respected current literary figures, not to mention the prevalence of social media such as Facebook and Twitter across all demographics. To use the fiction world as an example, traditional publishing used to be taken for granted as the sole means for publication; now, with options such as digital downloads, self-publishing, and distribution on device readers, the line between legitimate and illegitimate is blurred, so far as to possibly say that the platform will not matter nearly as much as the words written on it. They once said that the typewriter

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