Content Management System to Democratize Publishing
ICREA Research professor Jodi Cabot’s article looks to showcase the inner workings of WordPress as a content management system. WordPress has grown significantly by providing users the ability to host and build websites without expert knowledge of coding. WordPress started in 2003 when Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little forked the b2 blogging platform and created the first version of WordPress (Cabot, 2023). Some of the key elements of WordPress include:
- The
WordPress mission has been to democratize publishing, ensuring that any nontechnical person can create a website, while at the same time building a product that can scale all the way up to enterprise clients with complex needs (for example, e-commerce, multilingual, or mobile)(Cabot, 2023). - Since
WordPress’s creation in 2003, there have been many developments to the platform such as the usage of subversion (SVN) as their version control system, the release of more than 30 versions of the platform to keep up with security issues, and compatibility, and lastly the coding evolution of using unit tests. - WordPress credits its success primarily due to its platform being considered a one-size-fits-all solution, whereas competitors are looking for the best CMS for a specific customer profile.
Digital Semiotic Production: Self-styling and Technologization
Elisabetta Adami’s article analyzes the idea of digital semiotic production of (self-)styling and technologization. The article addresses these questions by focusing on the web design practices of blogs, as an early form of social media (Aichner and Jacob, 2015). The results of this study showed the role of a semiotic technology, such as the WordPress platform, in mediating between different layers of sign-makers; its mediation conceals the agents behind the technological affordances, naturalizing the power relations (and related conflicting views and positions) that concur to the production of semiotic regimes (Adami, 2018). In conclusion, shaping representational possibilities, semiotic technologies shape taste, trigger the shaping of selves, and shape social hierarchies from their semiotic expressions, i.e. who is (not) literate, who has (not) power, who is (not) expert, and who is (not) allowed subversion (Adami, 2018).
Conclusion
In my short usage of WordPress, I have considered it to be a powerful platform that provides the simplicity of website building and hosting to anyone. After reading both of these articles above, providing a reflection is only fit for understanding the two perspective laid out on WordPress’s platform. I agree with each article’s perspective on the impact that WordPress has on individuals over competitors. WordPress has grown much more than just a blogging platform, however, it has grown into a platform that provides the tools for individuals to showcase themselves digitally through website building. WordPress has increasingly become a platform for styling, imagery, branding. One of the most important aspects of WordPress that sets it apart from competitors is the compatibility and appeal to a beginner audience. With this in place, WordPress has become a main Hub for website creation.
- Work Cited
- – Cabot, Jodi. (2023). WordPress: A Content Management System to Democratize Publishing. Impact. https://mylearning.suny.edu/content/enforced/408840-2023SP-OSW-COM521-15738/WordPress_A_Content_Management_System_to_Democratize_Publishing1.pdf?_&d2lSessionVal=vgDrryizDN2VzCew7eHMaLLUK&ou=408840
- – Adami, Elisabetta. (2018). Styling the self online: semiotic technologization in weblog publishing. Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group vol. 28, no. 5, 601–622. https://mylearning.suny.edu/content/enforced/408840-2023SP-OSW-COM521-15738/WordPress-stylingself1.pdf?_&d2lSessionVal=vgDrryizDN2VzCew7eHMaLLUK&ou=408840
