My sister, a communications prof, and I were talking tonight about Web 2.0, and she brought up an expression from her Media Studies course: “Leaning forward versus leaning back.” She made the analogy that Web 1.0 was leaning back, meaning that you passively absorb what’s coming at you, whereas leaning forward indicates active engagement, which is Web 2.0.

We then got talking about blogs, which on the surface seem to be about leaning forward: asserting your perspectives and putting them out into the blogosphere. But blogs aren’t just for those who want to express themselves — there’s still plenty of room for leaning back and using them as a source for information. I’m curious to see how this forward/back concept will play out as my colleagues go through the Exploring Elementary 2.0 module: who will use blogs for expression and who will use them for information.  I definitely started as a “leaning back” blog reader long before I ever started writing a blog.

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