Though some might not have drawn this conclusion, Maud Newton believes some founding fathers would have enjoyed blogging.

"Ben Franklin would have loved the blog medium," Newton said Monday at the first Arts in Public Life luncheon of the semester.

Nationally renowned blogger Maud Newton of maudnewton.com and fellow blogger Michael Berube, a Penn State English professor, spoke on the rapidly evolving role of blogging in the arts world to a crowd of about 40 professors and students at Monday's event.

Newton, whose self-titled literary blog has been up and running since 2002, said she has watched the medium grow in popularity, and said it's filling a cultural void other mediums can't.

Berube said he, too, began blogging when the medium was "the wild frontier," and although he is amazed at how far it has come, there is much unused potential.

Much of the discussion dealt with the need for and advantages of using blogging as a medium.

Attendees told the two speakers they had varying levels of familiarity with the blogging world, and Berube and Newton helped define the technology in understandable terms.

"Blogging is nothing more than a fast way of putting information on the Internet," Newton said. "It's a form of publication."

Berube said it was simply a "means for the dissemination of information."

He also discussed the advantages of the medium -- including easy access and limitless space.

"You can't run out of room on the Internet," he said.

The speakers said it was necessary for newspapers to embrace the new medium to survive. Berube said the decline in newspaper readership seen over the past decade has reached a critical level.

"The Internet is your only hope," he said.

Newton put the advantages in economic terms.

"Blogs are good for newspapers because they drive readers to their sites, increasing revenue," she said.

Newton did admit, however, it is an uphill battle to encourage blogging.

"It's a labor of love, not a career," she said of her own blogging experience.

Event coordinator Jonathan Eburne, professor of comparative literature, said he was pleased at the turnout.

Although many attendees were unable to ask questions because of the time constraints of an hour-long event, Eburne offered a solution.

"Why don't you write about it in your blog?" he said with a laugh.