DIGC101 Reflective Essay

Q: How has the proliferation of the blogosphere allowed otherwise non ‘tech-savvy’
members of the public to communicate and participate in online communities?

To all accounts the Blogosphere is huge, but according to Andrew Keen there were
53 million blogs at the time of writing of his 2007 book Cult of the Amateur
(Keen, 2007). Keen also states that this number is doubling every 6 months,
meaning that today, there are at least 212 million blogs, if this calculation is
correct, making up the blogosphere. While it is highly unlikely that the majority
of these are active, in that they are regularly updated, it is still a dizzying
amount of readily available information, ideas and communication.

Spurring this rapid growth of blogs are free hosting websites such as Wordpress,
Blogger and Tumblr. These websites allow users to create a central account, from
which the user can create multiple blogs, personalise their blogs appearance and
join other such bloggers, creating online communities. These communities then make
links with other small communities and the effect snowballs resulting in large,
geographically defying communities.

‘Doheny-Farina’s (1996) statement on community:

A community is bound by place, which always includes complex social and

environmental necessities. It is not something you can easily join. You can’t
subscribe to a community as you subscribe to a discussion group on the net, It
must be lived. It is entwined, contradictory, and involves all our senses’ (Jones,
1998)

As the accessibility of online communication and networks has grown, the above
statement by Doheny-Farina is now obsolete. Our idea of an active community now
encompasses those which occur online. To say that a community must be something
that cannot be easily joined is based on traditional, physical implications of the
word community. The blogosphere transcends those traditional boundaries.
Communities within the blogosphere do not incur any joining rites, they are not
secret communities, and they are beyond networks, in which participating members
only need knowledge of the other parties involved rather than active involvement
between them. The word community, in context relating to the blogosphere, implies
that there is participation and an active method of contribution or group
communication. This contribution is the joining fee, the price required to be part
of the community is to contribute and help the community to expand.

The rapid expansion of the Blogosphere has been bolstered by the target market of
the aforementioned blog hosting sites. They have consciously taken out the
technological knowledge required of the previous generation of bloggers, which had
restricted the blogosphere to the tech-savvy, and industry workers who have
dominated the web up until the present.

Wordpress proudly portrays its catchcry at the top of its page, ‘Express yourself.
Start a blog’ (screenshot) (Wordpress, accessed 26/08/09). Tumblr and Blogger
follow suit with ‘The Easiest Way To Blog’(Tumblr, accessed 26/08/09). and ‘Create
a blog. It’s Free’(Blogger, accessed 26/08/09) respectively dominating half their
homepages. These sites present themselves as simple ‘type and post’ style hosts,
with no exceptional technological expertise required.

This prevalent availability of free, simple-to-use blogging mediums has caused

some criticism amongst professionals, previously they were the dominant force in
the blogosphere, now they’re being outnumbered by ‘The Cult of The Amateur’ (Keen,
2007). Keen argues that the credibility of information available is being
undermined by the ‘amateurish’ sources that are producing it. ‘For these Gen Y
utopians, every posting is just another person’s version of the truth; every
fiction is just another person’s version of the facts’ (Keen, 2007).

To further deteriorate Keen’s view of the information available on the web, a new
style of bite-sized reporting and communication has evolved; Micro-blogging.
Microblogging.com describes itself as a site featuring ‘news, reviews and a
directory of microblogging sites and applications’ (Microblogging.com, accessed
26/08/09).

The use of microblogging sites such as Twitter has become so mainstream that the
United Kingdom’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has released a 20
page guideline detailing how to use twitter for departmental use in the UK
government (microblogging.com blog, accessed 26/08/09).
A group of society that has noticeably taken up blogging, and micro-blogging in
particular are celebrities, sharing with us the more intimate aspects of their
lives. Twitter profiles can be found for music icons Jay Z and Britney Spears,
generational Hollywood funny men Ashton Kutcher and Jerry Seinfeld, sports icon
Michael Jordan and current US President Barack Obama also has an account. These
societal icons are elevating the status of micro-blogging and helping it grow as
more members of the public create accounts with the intention of finding out their
latest celeb goss.

Danah boyd said about Friendster (an early social networking website); ‘Friendster
created a stage for digital flanéurs: a place to see and be seen’. The same
applies to celebrity culture’s use of Twitter and other microblogging services.
They are increasing their public presence in a way that is un-intrusive, free of
charge and easily adaptable to suit their day-to-day needs.

The task that we were set at the beginning of the subject was to ‘craft a specific
online presence’. This has involved developing a specific persona around a
personal interest, fictitious character or other such appropriate theme.
Bloghosting websites catered to this task with their adaptability, customisation
and personalisation options, and their content flexibility.

Danah boyd talks of ‘Fakesters’ or false accounts in her discussion of Friendster,

‘from the earliest days, participants took advantage of the system to craft
“Fakesters” or non-biographical profiles. Fakesters were created for famous
people, fictitious characters, objects, places and locations, identity markers,
concepts, animals and communities’ (2007).

In DIGC101, it is evident that the creation of non-biographical profiles has been

catered for within the flexibility of the blogging platforms. Adjustable settings
like custom URL’s, interchangeable themes and open source html code is available
to manipulate the look of the page online. This personalisation has attracted
people to the use of blogging platforms with an individualistic idea in mind.
However, these features are completely optional, for those with little
technological expertise, the standard templates and settings are fine.

Connels Court is one such identity developed in class. Blogging from the
perspective of an apartment block, describing its life with such lines as ‘I am
occupied by some of Cronulla’s finest residents. If you haven’t had the pleasure
of their company just yet, allow me to introduce them’ (Connels Court, accessed
26/08/09) is only possible with the adjustment of major features such as a change
of theme, creative description and different media content.

‘Citizen journalism is a euphemism for what you or I might call “journalism by

non-journalists” ‘ (Keen, 2007). Keen is describing here what he see’s as the
decline of credible information, ‘citizen journalists have no formal training or
expertise, yet they routinely offer up opinion as fact, rumour as reportage and
innuendo as information’ (2007). This type of journalism has been encouraged by
the accessibility of easy to use distribution platforms like blogs and social
networking sites.

Newspie is one such news blog developed in class, ‘an independently run blog about
issues concerning local and national communities‘ (Newspie, accessed 26/08/09).
Utilising the one to many method of communication, Newspie delivers multi-media
news to thousands of potential readers. This volume of potential exposure is a
reason why citizen journalists are turning to blogs as their main form of
communication.

As the accessibility to cheap, easy to use blogging platforms has grown, so too
has the number of public members using them to blog about their lives, current
issues and societal matters. They are forming communities within communities and
adding to the blogosphere through their posts. Microblogging has provided
celebrities with the ability to increase their public presence and in turn these
celebrities are helping to increase the stature of microblogging platforms like
Twitter. Bloghosting platforms Wordpress, Blogger and Tumblr have enabled members
of the public to express themselves in previously unattainable ways. They can now
adopt personalities (Connels Court), pseudonyms of anonymity or become a
journalist (Newspie) with thousands of internet users as their audience.
_______________________________________________________________
References:

Offline:

• Boyd d, 2007, None Of This Is Real: Identity and Participation in

Friendster, in ‘Structures of Participation in Digital Culture’ ed. Karaganis J,
Social Science Research Council, New York

• Keen, A, 2007, The Cult of the Amateur: How Todays Internet is Killing Our
Culture and Assaulting Our Economy, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London

• Jones S G, 1998, Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated

Communication and Community, Sage Publishing, Thousand Oaks, California

Online:

• 2009, Blogger Home Page, accessed 26/08/09, http://www.blogger.com

• 2009, Microblogging.com Homepage, accessed 26/08/09,

http://microblogging.com/

• 2009, Newspie Blog, accessed 26/08/09, http://newspie.wordpress.com/

• 2009, Tumblr Homepage, accessed 26/08/09, http://www.tumblr.com/

• Warburton L, 2009, Connels Court, blog, accessed 26/08/09,

http://www.connelscourt.tumblr.com

• 2009, Wordpress Homepage, accessed 26/08/09, http://www.wordpress.com/