Blogs as narratives have a unique format because of their structure. Unlike novels, the story of a blog isn’t told all at once. It is episodic. For readers to get the full story, they must read the entire blog post bypost. Each post is simply a fragment, but can offer the reader a view into the blogger’s personal life if the story is pieced together correctly. Rettberg discussed how some blogs have a very clear goal that is stated at the beginning of the creation of the blog. Some examples she discussed were dating blogs and dieting blogs. Each episode or blog post leaves the reader wanting to know what will happen next. The blogger’s struggles with weight or dating become the readers’ struggles and they began to form a connection with the blogger. Unfortunately for the readers, this connection ends when the blogger reaches their goal and ends the blog because he or she no longer has anything to blog about.
Sometimes bloggers who use blogs to tell their story become trapped in the persona that they created for the blog. Rettberg discussed how the author of a blog entitled Chronicles of Dr. Crazy felt limited because she couldn’t discuss her professional
life as much as she wanted, due to the concept of the blog that she had created online. She constantly had to carefully edit her posts. When a blogger feels contained in a space that was originally created for freedom, the end of the blog is near. Dr. Crazy ended up closing that blog and starting a new one where she would feel less constrained.
Dr. Crazy’s blog was a pseudonymous blog. She exposed part of herself, but not enough that anyone would be able to figure out her identity. She was using the blog for self-exploration. Rettberg writes that a reflection of ourselves is created in our blog. Pseudonymous bloggers will expose bits of their personality or crop pictures, only showing the reader what they want the reader to see. However, while Dr. Crazy was using a fake name to keep from being judged for her interests, some pseudonymous bloggers such as Kaycee Nicole create an entire new identity, usually drastically different from their own, as a sort of secret roleplay. The reasons behind this vary, but it seems clear that Kaycee Nicole was an effort for the blogger behind the name to get friends, feeling that her true identity or personality prevented this in some way. However, lonelygirl15's case shows that there are other reasons, such as a team of people experimenting with alternate forms of storytelling.
So far, this book has illustrated several uses for blogs: diary-style recountings of an individual's life, lists of interesting or relevant links, news blogs, a diary for a secretly fictional person, and even an acknowledged fictional diary as a form of storytelling. However, some people use their blogs as a way to make some extra cash or promote their own products. Dooce was presented earlier in the book as an example of a someone making money through advertising on their blog, but now we learn about referral fees, PayPerPost advertising, and spammer accounts. Some bloggers review products and get paid as the agent that referred a customer to the site. Spammer accounts leave links to the product or website being promoted, both in their blog and as comments on other blogs, as an effort to lead readers to the product/website or simply to up the popularity rating of the target site on search engines, which assume that more links means a better site. However, because search engines are becoming more efficient at sorting out spammed links from others, efforts such as PayPerPost, as the name suggests, pays bloggers for each post reviewing a specific product.
While some businesses pay bloggers for advertisement space, others write their own blogs in an effort to gain attention for their products, events, and company. Business blogs are a way for companies to establish, maintain, and grow relationships with their customers. They are also a way for companies to participate in conversations that are taking place online. Corporate blogs allow companies to bypass the traditional media outlets and speak directly to their consumers.
According to Rettberg, businesses try to maintain the personal character of blogs. Very large companies will sometimes try to have separate blogs for different topics, have employees take turns at contributing, or not have an official corporate blog at all, but just encourage their employees to create their own blogs to write about their career experience and interests. Many companies have guidelines for their employees who blog, but sometimes it is the company itself that acts dishonestly. Rettberg discussed the incident the Wal-Mart sponsored blog where neither the couple writing it nor the company sponsoring it disclosed that Wal-Mart was paying this couple to write about them. The lack of transparency shown by Wal-Mart showed the importance of establishing ethical guidelines for employees.
It seems likely that blogging will continue into the future, though the particular mechanisms are likely to change. People seem to enjoy participating in media and sharing their lives and opinions. It is likely that certain trends will continue - diversity is increasing, implicit data collection sites (such as Last.fm) are only beginning to be used to their full potential, and the customizations from search engines such as Google and Amazon are getting more and more accurate and useful.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
1/19/2010
While it may seem that bloggers are writing in a diary or personal journal, the reality is that their blogs are a means of social interaction, ranging from large audiences to small networks of friends. Mark Granovetter theorizes that weak ties between individuals are more important than strong ties, because if a blogger posts something that a close friend reposts, approximately the same group of people will see it; if a more distant ("weak tie") friend reposts, a very different group of people will be able to add their opinions. This is most apparent in the number of links leading back to the original blog - with more weak tie friends, the news gets out to a wider variety of people, who are then likely to share the link with their friends. Having more links is commonly equated with being more powerful in the blogosphere.
Because of this system of bloggers linking to one another, it is clear that there is no central hub in the blogging world; this is a distributed network, the category that is becoming more and more popular. An example of the other main category - a centralized network - would be a news body such as CNN, in which all pieces link back to this central hub. With the interlinking in blogging systems, the tendency of a blog to be like a book is minimized. Despite the blogger not being able to have immediate access to his readers and the blog's persistence in archives, linking among blogs reduces the solo feeling of a printed book and allows for a social network to be created.
Some social networks (for example, Myspace and Facebook) include blogging features but place more emphasis on the other parts of their sites, such as photo, video, and music capabilities. Like some blogs, these websites allow for privacy settings so that only mutual friends or even further restrictions of 'custom friend groups' can view certain content. dinah boyd presents four characteristics of online social spaces that differentiate them from offline social spaces:
1. Persistence - Content posted to the internet may stay there even after the author attempts to delete it
2. Searchability - The internet may be searched for people and used to locate what content they have added
3. Replicable - Any photos or writings posted may be modified or copied without the author's knowledge
4. Invisible Audiences - It is never 100% certain who is viewing the blog and its profile.
One danger of online and offline social networking is that when they collide, the effect on a person may be large. For example, some bloggers have been fired for what they have shared online, and many teenagers do not wish for their mothers to use the same sites as them to conceal certain personal information. Many bloggers are familiar with the constant juggling act required to keep on and offline social circles from intersecting painfully. Perhaps more interesting, however, is the theoretical side of the whole issue - where will blogs and other online social networks be ten, twenty, even fifty years from now?
Bloggers are increasingly being seen as similar to journalists, because both tell a story in every piece of writing they compose. However, bloggers often have more freedom in their writings, whereas journalists are restrained in length and subject area. Yet many people find journalists more credible than bloggers who aren't associated with a publishing or news company. One of the most important differences between bloggers and journalists relates to "gatewatching" - the controls that govern journalism and other forms of traditional media to ensure proper research and writing prior to publication. While there are no stringent or official regulations for blogs, Alex Burns explains that an informal gatewatching occurs simply through viewer interest. Bloggers also can sometimes find fault and/or inaccuracy in traditional media reporting, which adds another levelof gatewatching. B logs written by by individuals do often link to more mainstream media, but it is important to also note that they often link to other blogger's sites on these stories instead of the actual mainstream media. Larger sites suchas Slashdot tend to have more "gatewatching" than smaller sites which does cut down on this.
Overall, blogs can often serve much the same purposes as traditional media. They allow citizens to voice their opinions and bring to light controversial subject matters. Both blogs and mainstream media must gauge the responsiveness of their audiences. Rettberg argues that these two forms of media equally need each other to thrive. Yet only 5% of bloggers consider themselves journalists; this is not yet a common issue and has only rarely been a legal problem. Even bloggers who are experiencing an event first-hand (for example, a student at Columbine during the shootings) believe that they are just sharing their life, not reporting on an incident for all the world to read. The future will probably bring a legal definition for which bloggers are and which aren't journalists, but in the meantime, it may be best to refer to these people in the way in which they refer to themselves
Because of this system of bloggers linking to one another, it is clear that there is no central hub in the blogging world; this is a distributed network, the category that is becoming more and more popular. An example of the other main category - a centralized network - would be a news body such as CNN, in which all pieces link back to this central hub. With the interlinking in blogging systems, the tendency of a blog to be like a book is minimized. Despite the blogger not being able to have immediate access to his readers and the blog's persistence in archives, linking among blogs reduces the solo feeling of a printed book and allows for a social network to be created.
Some social networks (for example, Myspace and Facebook) include blogging features but place more emphasis on the other parts of their sites, such as photo, video, and music capabilities. Like some blogs, these websites allow for privacy settings so that only mutual friends or even further restrictions of 'custom friend groups' can view certain content. dinah boyd presents four characteristics of online social spaces that differentiate them from offline social spaces:
1. Persistence - Content posted to the internet may stay there even after the author attempts to delete it
2. Searchability - The internet may be searched for people and used to locate what content they have added
3. Replicable - Any photos or writings posted may be modified or copied without the author's knowledge
4. Invisible Audiences - It is never 100% certain who is viewing the blog and its profile.
One danger of online and offline social networking is that when they collide, the effect on a person may be large. For example, some bloggers have been fired for what they have shared online, and many teenagers do not wish for their mothers to use the same sites as them to conceal certain personal information. Many bloggers are familiar with the constant juggling act required to keep on and offline social circles from intersecting painfully. Perhaps more interesting, however, is the theoretical side of the whole issue - where will blogs and other online social networks be ten, twenty, even fifty years from now?
Bloggers are increasingly being seen as similar to journalists, because both tell a story in every piece of writing they compose. However, bloggers often have more freedom in their writings, whereas journalists are restrained in length and subject area. Yet many people find journalists more credible than bloggers who aren't associated with a publishing or news company. One of the most important differences between bloggers and journalists relates to "gatewatching" - the controls that govern journalism and other forms of traditional media to ensure proper research and writing prior to publication. While there are no stringent or official regulations for blogs, Alex Burns explains that an informal gatewatching occurs simply through viewer interest. Bloggers also can sometimes find fault and/or inaccuracy in traditional media reporting, which adds another levelof gatewatching. B logs written by by individuals do often link to more mainstream media, but it is important to also note that they often link to other blogger's sites on these stories instead of the actual mainstream media. Larger sites suchas Slashdot tend to have more "gatewatching" than smaller sites which does cut down on this.
Overall, blogs can often serve much the same purposes as traditional media. They allow citizens to voice their opinions and bring to light controversial subject matters. Both blogs and mainstream media must gauge the responsiveness of their audiences. Rettberg argues that these two forms of media equally need each other to thrive. Yet only 5% of bloggers consider themselves journalists; this is not yet a common issue and has only rarely been a legal problem. Even bloggers who are experiencing an event first-hand (for example, a student at Columbine during the shootings) believe that they are just sharing their life, not reporting on an incident for all the world to read. The future will probably bring a legal definition for which bloggers are and which aren't journalists, but in the meantime, it may be best to refer to these people in the way in which they refer to themselves
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