blogging - being social online

8/8/2019 Blogging - being social online

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Module Title: INTERNET CULTURES

Term and Year taken: SUMMER 2010

MICHELLE CANNON

Being Social Online: extracting and critiquing the arguments

around identity and its impact on social relations, based on

experiences of blogging

Word count (number of words): 2717

Student evaluation submitted: N

Copy posted on FirstClass/Blackboard:

FINAL SUBMISSION

Name of Tutor(s): John Potter & Shaku Banaji

MA in Media, Culture & CommunicationUniversity of London, Institute of Education

Month and Year of Submission: (August 2010)


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M Cannon Internet Cultures

Being Social Online: extracting and critiquing the arguments around identity and its

impact on social relations based on experiences of blogging

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Blogging reminds me of Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire (1987), particularly the

intriguing moments in the library. Unseen, silent angels in overcoats wander around

bearing witness to peoples thoughts and feelings with benevolent, empathetic,

anonymous engagement. We

hear the discursive thoughts of

the readers, producing a

synchronous hum of r ambling

meditations. It struck me that

the library could be an

embryonic, visual

representation of cyberspace, its occupants busy bloggers, its roving Angels the blurkers

who occasionally interact but with one-way melancholic resignation. Where the analogy

must end is to appreciate the inherent stasis in the scene. Although both are in active,

co-present pursuit of knowledge and understanding, the re is no interaction between the

Angels and the consumers of texts.

From late 80s cinema to contemporary late modernity (Giddens: 1991:3), the

affordances of Web 2.0 technologies have enabled widespread dynamic social

interaction and the multimodal creation and distribution of texts. These relatively new

trajectories in the digitally mediated environment ha ve significant implications for

social relations, for identity play and performance. Through the lens of personal

blogging I present an examination of the changing nature of social interactions; I will

explore the socio-historic context of blogging and motivations to blog, followed by

theories on identity, the presentation of self and the potential impact on social

relations.


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Context

The internet offers new ways of being and as such is accompanied by polarised

rhetoric in relation to what might be gained and lost. There are euphoric claims as to

the liberating, creative and empowering characteristics of participatory social media,

such as that espoused by Gauntlett (2010) and his advocation ofMedia Studies 2.0 in

contrast with moral panics (Buckingham 2007: 8) and negative discourses around

the internet, the converging of traditional media and, worryingly for some, the

merging of the private and public spheres. Recalling Leavisite scepticism, Habermas

bemoans the loss of critically filtered issues (Rettberg, 2008: 1) and the demise o f

the intellectual, who:

[is] suffocating from the excess of this vitalising element, as if they

were overdosing. The blessing seems to have become a curse. (ibid).

These perspectives are framed by complex socio-economic conditions [contributing]

to a sense of fragmentation and uncertainty (Buckingham, 2008: 1). Buckingham,

drawing on Baumans insight, argues that destabilising, external factors, such as

globalisation, migration, family breakdown, and increasing social mobility (ibid)

pose a threatto established more stable means of identity formation and recognition:

gender, race, class, ethnic origin and sexuality. Consequently, as Merchant has

identified, it is rather through our lifestyle choices that our identities are now

negotiated; always bearing in mind that new technologies are by no means uniformly

accessible to all and that technological innovation is not homogenous in its uptake or

effects (Merchant, 2006: 240). In fact, there are now claims that identity is a

conscious act: something we do, rather than simply something we are (Buckingham,

2008:8). Likewise, Giddens has developed an anti-essentialist, discursive notion of

identities as enacted, performed, and in consequence, as plural and contextually

contingent (Livingstone, 2009: 92). The proposed fluidity of identity chimes with my

own experiences abroad: being conversant in the languages, I flirtedwith French,

Italian, Spanish and Brazilian personas, but on returning would revert to what felt like

a core English identity;familiarmeasures of: white, educated, middle-class, female of

Christian origin (with social class being the most variable identity indicator whilst

abroad).


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If identity is infinitely malleable then blogging fits well into this new paradigm as a

genre/medium with no discernible end view. As we write [ourselves] into being

(boyd, 2008:129) we can re-write our self-representation at will (as can others

unknown to us) depending on who we anticipate as our audience. Online

communication is synonymous with quick editing and transformation, the mixing and

repurposing of user-generated multimodal content so central to convergence

culture (Jenkins, 2006). At the same time, binary perspectives surface associated

with risk and opportunity: the enabled, autonomous blogger, free from the

hegemonic publishing structures of print as opposed to the vulnerable blogger, open

to widespread misrepresentation, the ambiguities inherent in the workings of

networked publics (boyd, 2008:120) and the exigencies of the commercial

framework within which the blogger operates.

Motivations

a successful blog must be tended as a garden Well-tended blogs are not at

all like the writings of which Plato complains, if you ask them a question they

preserve a solemn silence. (Jill Rettberg, 2008: 6)

Plato extolled the virtues of the oral tradition and it does seem that blogging is

contributing to a resurgence of oralcy, dialogue and exchange. This is also evident in

the wider context of mediated communication, from the popularity of reality TV to

the mechanics of Wikipedia, SMS, Twitter and social networking sites. Blogging is an

open-ended hybrid genre which, in a sense, satisfies a primal urge to self-express

offering the dual satisfaction of personal, reflective, introspective reading and writing

as well as an outward-looking mass media platform from which to orate and

endlessly be heard, if only potentially: Blogging is evidence of the possibil ity of a

form of literacy that is not solipsistic or rather, that is both interior and social at the

same time. (Jill Rettberg, 2008: 6)

Rettbergs gardening analogy is pertinent here in terms of my own motivations to

blog, in the sense that I see it a s a dynamic public extension of myself with its own

particular style and design that warrants nurturing so that it mightcross-seed and

flourish. Whereas a comment might be as welcome as a bloom, theres always the


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risk of having to negotiate the unexpected arrival of migrant seedlings or unwelcome

weeds. Indeed, the unanticipated is an interesting area for debate. My blog started

off as a photographic display of images taken 20 years ago in Rio de Janeiro; I felt it

would be worthwhile to scan and display the photos in a blog rather th an on a site

such as Flickr; the former being a morepersonalgenre (demonstrated by a more

prevalent use of the preposition in rather than on a blog). One of the attractive

attributes of blogging is the perceived measure of control one has over its style and

content, if not so much over the form and structure. When Shaku posted a comment

disagreeing with one of my posts in relation to the interrogation of a photo, although

initially I may have taken it as criticism, her comment had more of a fertilizing impact.

As referenced earlier, identity only becomes an issue when perceived as under threat

and there was an interesting shift in the nature of the garden and therefore the

nature of my identity as portrayed in this blog.

I meant the blog to be both a personaland academic meditation on a photographic

journey and this rude awakening offered some insight into whether indeed this was

a feasible objective. Doesprivate reflection, a site where one imagines one has

exclusive editorial control as with a diary, sit well alongsidepublic academic debate? I

started to question my motivations for writing this particular blog - was it for any or

all of the following reasons: to reveal my inner intellectual? to display some nice

photos? to revel in nostalgia? to test my aptitude in a new creative genre? to offer

insight into Brazilian culture? to examine my instinct to document events

photographically? or simply to compete for the attention and recognition of co-

bloggers and course-leaders? Despite its linear simplistic shortcomings, perhaps the

final two stages of Bartlett-Braggs (2003) 5-stage Blogging Process, Reflective

Dialogue and Knowledge Artefact, may have been reached during this episode,

illustrating that: creative interaction with ones own development helps to ensure

that new knowledge is incorporated in, and integrated with existing knowledge

(Walker, 1985:65).

Presentation of Self

For reasons of social cohesion and harmonious face-to-face interaction a consistent


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sense of offline self is a socially desirable personal characteristic, however,

consistency can also imply permanence and authenticity. Livingstone observes that

this is not always the case with online communication, which is:

neither deliberately deceitful nor scrupulously honest. It is, rather, carefully

judged to reveal something but not too much, to sustain connection without

losing face, to open the way for a deeper engagement while providing a safety

route if misunderstood (Livingstone, 2009: 97, my italics)

Blogging problematises the assumption of an essential self and some of that may

have to do with the fact that: the respondent is noticeably absent (Merchant,

2006:237). It would seem to make sense that there is a correlation between confident

identity performance and knowing ones audience, such that uncertainties in this

regard, not least whether one has an audience at all, can lead to identity being played

out as a precarious, impermanent, experimental balancing act of the nature described

above. If identitys fluid content is unreliable, what gains in significance is the need for

it to keep flowing. In short: our capacity to keep a particular narrative going

(Giddens, 1991:54), whether with ourselves or others , is paramount to a stable sense

of self. Livingstone, inspired by Drotner, also adheres to this argument:

Online conversations are largely phatic, meaningful more for sustaining

contact than communicating content (Livingstone, 2009: 94)

and judging from the surfeit of unacknowledged, abandoned and overgrown

gardens in cyberspace, it may well be that, like Wenders Angels, it is contact,

intimacy and recognition that most of us crave, rather than public-spirited knowledge

dissemination or self-promotion.

Giddens concept of the compulsion to consistently explain oneself to oneself may

explain why some bloggers define posting as a chore, an addiction or a deep-seated

need to build their biography and integrate events into their ongoing story

(Giddens, 1991:54). Merchant, however, argues that biography is constituted by an

overlapping interaction between ancho red and transient identities; respectively,

those which are least likely to change (Merchant 2006: 239) gender, religion, age,


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social class, sexuality, ethnicity and those more fleeting, associated with inevitable

changes over time influenced by maturation, changing cultural conditions and peer

group affiliations (ibid). I see this reflected in my own blog posts with respect to

critiquing my past behaviour as a bold, 20-year old, female gringa and how I might

behave now in a similar situation. My Ridley Road Market movies are inextricably

linked with insecurities regarding issues of anchored social class and ethnicity and

the transient ambiguous image of myself as an unconventional creative. I also notice

how readily I reveal and define mypastvalues and identities in contrast with almost a

reluctance to examine shifting and elusive currentones. The weaving of Merchants

two faces of identity the shared anchored and the individual transient are seen

as poles on a continuum a continuum from which instances of identity

performance are drawn (ibid). Merchants emphasis on constant movement defuses

essentialist arguments which tend to ignore the extent to which contingency and the

chosen medium of self-presentation can influence the outcome and its reception.

The personal control and creativity associated with Goffmans impression

management to which Buckingham refers (2008: 6) is perhaps less autonomous than

the semantics imply. Indeed, with a broader perspective, Hall reminds us that:

because identities are constructed within, not outside, discourse, we need to

understand them as produced in specific historical and institutional sites

within the play of specific modalities of power (Hall, 1996:4)

The likelihood is that Foucault would have been similarly persuaded and less

celebratory than Goffman in terms of the freedom the latter associates with identity

construction and the potency of individual agency:

solitary player[s] involved in a harried concern for [their] production . Behind

many masks each performer tends to wear a single look, a naked

unsocialised look (Goffman, 1959:235).

In the context of technologically mediated sociability (Livingstone, 2009: 97),

Goffman might envisage enabling latitude for reflexivity and personal choice (albeit

painful), but Foucault - an oppressive process of self-monitoring in an environment


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constructed by the dominant group. Buckingham explains Foucaults position:

who we perceive ourselves to be is the product of powerful and subtle

forms of governmentality that are characteristic of modern liberal

democracies (Buckingham, 2008:10)

Buckingham goes on to construe from this the confessionalnature of social relations

as evidenced offline in the expansive self-help industry, more popularly in Big

Brothers Diary Room and online in diary -like blogs as a consequence of individuals

being encouraged to speak the truth (ibid) about their identities and essentially to

micromanage a process of self-surveillance. I can see how this plays out in blog

entries, as I found myself posting photos with the somewhat enigmatic comment: I

will think of something to s ay about these lateras if the photos encapsulated a

hidden truth societal or personal - and if I thought deeply it would be revealed and

expressed. As we have seen, blogging champions such as Bartlett-Bragg, would herald

personal soul-searching as a successful learning milestone. Merchant also observes

the fact of having to work harder to produce ourselves in this new communicative

medium (2006: 237), while Foucaults assessment reduces identity to the

manifestation of power diffused through social relationships (Buckingham,

2008:10) so that subjects police themselves and conform to acceptable norms.

It could be argued that Western societies have been doing their transient

identities for decades, appropriating aspects of popular and consumer culture in the

manner of the bricoleur (Lvi-Strauss, 1974:21). However, Web 2.0 technologies

have enabled more active individuals to become both consumers andproducers of

meaning, their texts imbued with a sense of urgent DIY deliberation. Indeed one

might even claim that online identities makes the transient seem anchored, by

their very digital permanence and projection on a screen as: direct light [is]

constantly asking for attention (Powers quotes James L. McQuivey, 2007:59). If true,

such an assertion will almost certainly have implications for maturing identity

performances as the pseudo-anchored crumbles under the weight of time and

changing circumstance.


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Liberating as Web 2.0 opportunities are in many instances, we must also be mindful

of the non-neutralityof internet services. We make and view content under the aegis

of private transnational conglomerates, such as Google and Facebook, who routinely

regulate and track the ways our online identities are expressed. They peddle our

recorded enthusiasms and personal display data to the highest bidder in the name of

freedom-loving, egalitarian counter-culture and the unshackled advancement of the

interconnected world. It could be said that who can know whatabout whom is the

new global currency construct and while it endures, the new Barons of capitalism

become infinitely rich and powerful (Andrew Keen: The Virtual Revolution, BBC 4

@ 4mins 30 seconds)

Conclusion

I have shown that the blogging environment can challenge personal and public

identity assumptions and lead to tensions in social relations amongst peers and

academics and more broadly in relation to the expanding and contracting privacy

rights of the individual. Moreover, marginalised and less salubrious groups such as

pro-anorexia groups and those with socially-exclusive motivations are given the

freedom to self-publish and flourish. New media technology isnt necessarily the great

democratic leveller, nor does it usher in the demise of the intellectual or traditional

values, it is put to use in a socially constructed arena which is in a state of continuous

tension. In many respects, as regards its concurrent freedoms and constraints,

blogging neatly illustrates Gramscis compromise equilibrium (1971:161) theory so

central to the hegemonic process in wider society.

Barthes reflected on the dynamics of a couple living together and their mutually

negotiated ethic of distance (Livingstone, 2009: 97), rather like the movement of a

school of fish (ibid); the same ethos can be applied to the blogosphere whose

inhabitants:

find their own rhythms and cadences, their own flows of contact and

distance absence and co-presence lack of attention and absorption,

safety and interactional vulnerability (Livingstone, 2009: 97)


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Finally, as Wenders acknowledges, children in literature are often depicted as wise

know-ers and see-ers and as much western youth enthusiastically embrace online

networking as a means of organising and articulating their identities, we should be

refining and extending boyds examination of their online practices (2008). Blogging in

particular has given rise to sophisticated negotiation of levels of intimacy as well as

nuanced, reflexive, internal and explicit dialogue. For all its asynchronicity, perhaps its

lean and lowly position on the Continuum of Media Richness should be revised

upwards. (Herring 2003:3 from Daft and Lengel 1984).

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References:

Bartlett-Bragg , A (2003) Blogging to Learn

boyd, d(2008) Why Youth Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics inTeenage Social Life in D. Buckingham (ed) Youth, Identity and Digital Media,

MacArthur Foundation Series

Buckingham, D (2007) The Impact of the Media on Children andYoung People with a

particular focus on computer games and the internet (Prepared for The Byron Review

on Children and New Technology commissioned by the Department for Children,

Schools and Families)

Buckingham, D (2008)Introducing Identity in Youth, Identity and Digital Media,

(MacArthur Foundation Series)

Gauntlett, D (January 2010) Making is Creating:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF4OBfVQmCI (accessed 19 July 2010)

Gauntlett, D (March 2007) Media Studies 2.0:

http://www.theory.org.uk/mediastudies2.htm(accessed 4 August 2010)

Giddens, A (1991) Modernity and Self Identity: self and society in the late modern age

Goffman, E (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Gramsci, A (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci(edited by

Hoare and Smith)

Hall, S & P, du Gay (1996) Introduction: Who Needs Identity? in Questions of Cultural

Identity

Herring, S et al (2003) When Rich Media are Opaque: Spatial Reference in a 3 -D

Virtual World(School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University,

Bloomington)


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Jenkins, H (2006) Convergence Culture

Lvi-Strauss (1974) The Savage Mind

Livingstone, S (2009) Children and the Internet

Merchant, G (2006) Identity, Social Networks and Online Communication (E-Learning,

Vol 3, No. 2)

Powers, W (2007) Hamlets Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal(Joan Shorenstein Centre

on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Discussion Paper Series). Also posted in my

blog (posted May 13 2010; both sites accessed 16 July 2010)

Rettberg J.W (2008) Blogs, Literacies and the Collapse of Private and Public (Leonardo

Electronic Almanac Vol 16 Issue 2 3)

Walker, D (1985) Writing and Reflection in Turning Experience into Learning (edited by

D. Boud, R. Keogh & D. Walker)

Wim Wenders: Wings of Desire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi8sYY0pCdE

(accessed 19 July 2010)

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