In my term paper I want to explore the influence blogging has on society, as a scholarly tool used for collaboration, as well as the effects it has upon news media. I need a better understanding of what a blog is outside of the basic definition of " a web log." I question how do we separate fact from opinion, what is credible information, and can any blog be used as a scholarly reference? Even some of the major news networks seem to have a biased opinion based on a political point of view. Does this alone invalidate the credibility? Or is it considered fact based opinion?