DIGC101 - Reflective Essay

8/14/2019 DIGC101 - Reflective Essay

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DIGC101 Reflective Essay

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

To all accounts the Blogosphere is huge, but according to Andrew Keen there were53 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 iscorrect, making up the blogosphere. While it is highly unlikely that the majorityof these are active, in that they are regularly updated, it is still a dizzyingamount 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, fromwhich the user can create multiple blogs, personalise their blogs appearance andjoin other such bloggers, creating online communities. These communities then makelinks with other small communities and the effect snowballs resulting in large,geographically defying communities.

Doheny-Farinas (1996) statement on community:

A community is bound by place, which always includes complex social andenvironmental necessities. It is not something you can easily join. You cantsubscribe to a community as you subscribe to a discussion group on the net, Itmust be lived. It is entwined, contradictory, and involves all our senses (Jones,1998)

As the accessibility of online communication and networks has grown, the abovestatement by Doheny-Farina is now obsolete. Our idea of an active community nowencompasses those which occur online. To say that a community must be somethingthat cannot be easily joined is based on traditional, physical implications of theword 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 membersonly need knowledge of the other parties involved rather than active involvementbetween them. The word community, in context relating to the blogosphere, impliesthat there is participation and an active method of contribution or groupcommunication. This contribution is the joining fee, the price required to be partof the community is to contribute and help the community to expand.

The rapid expansion of the Blogosphere has been bolstered by the target market ofthe aforementioned blog hosting sites. They have consciously taken out thetechnological knowledge required of the previous generation of bloggers, which hadrestricted the blogosphere to the tech-savvy, and industry workers who havedominated 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 Bloggerfollow suit with The Easiest Way To Blog(Tumblr, accessed 26/08/09). and Createa blog. Its Free(Blogger, accessed 26/08/09) respectively dominating half theirhomepages. 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 causedsome criticism amongst professionals, previously they were the dominant force inthe blogosphere, now theyre being outnumbered by The Cult of The Amateur (Keen,2007). Keen argues that the credibility of information available is being


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undermined by the amateurish sources that are producing it. For these Gen Yutopians, every posting is just another persons version of the truth; everyfiction is just another persons version of the facts (Keen, 2007).

To further deteriorate Keens view of the information available on the web, a newstyle of bite-sized reporting and communication has evolved; Micro-blogging.Microblogging.com describes itself as a site featuring news, reviews and adirectory of microblogging sites and applications (Microblogging.com, accessed

26/08/09).

The use of microblogging sites such as Twitter has become so mainstream that theUnited Kingdoms Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has released a 20page guideline detailing how to use twitter for departmental use in the UKgovernment (microblogging.com blog, accessed 26/08/09).A group of society that has noticeably taken up blogging, and micro-blogging inparticular are celebrities, sharing with us the more intimate aspects of theirlives. Twitter profiles can be found for music icons Jay Z and Britney Spears,generational Hollywood funny men Ashton Kutcher and Jerry Seinfeld, sports iconMichael Jordan and current US President Barack Obama also has an account. Thesesocietal icons are elevating the status of micro-blogging and helping it grow asmore 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); Friendstercreated a stage for digital flanurs: a place to see and be seen. The sameapplies to celebrity cultures use of Twitter and other microblogging services.They are increasing their public presence in a way that is un-intrusive, free ofcharge 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 specificonline presence. This has involved developing a specific persona around apersonal interest, fictitious character or other such appropriate theme.Bloghosting websites catered to this task with their adaptability, customisationand 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 craftFakesters or non-biographical profiles. Fakesters were created for famouspeople, 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 beencatered for within the flexibility of the blogging platforms. Adjustable settingslike custom URLs, interchangeable themes and open source html code is availableto manipulate the look of the page online. This personalisation has attractedpeople 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 theperspective of an apartment block, describing its life with such lines as I amoccupied by some of Cronullas finest residents. If you havent had the pleasureof their company just yet, allow me to introduce them (Connels Court, accessed26/08/09) is only possible with the adjustment of major features such as a changeof theme, creative description and different media content.

Citizen journalism is a euphemism for what you or I might call journalism bynon-journalists (Keen, 2007). Keen is describing here what he sees as the


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decline of credible information, citizen journalists have no formal training orexpertise, yet they routinely offer up opinion as fact, rumour as reportage andinnuendo as information (2007). This type of journalism has been encouraged bythe accessibility of easy to use distribution platforms like blogs and socialnetworking sites.

Newspie is one such news blog developed in class, an independently run blog aboutissues concerning local and national communities (Newspie, accessed 26/08/09).

Utilising the one to many method of communication, Newspie delivers multi-medianews to thousands of potential readers. This volume of potential exposure is areason why citizen journalists are turning to blogs as their main form ofcommunication.

As the accessibility to cheap, easy to use blogging platforms has grown, so toohas the number of public members using them to blog about their lives, currentissues and societal matters. They are forming communities within communities andadding to the blogosphere through their posts. Microblogging has providedcelebrities with the ability to increase their public presence and in turn thesecelebrities are helping to increase the stature of microblogging platforms likeTwitter. Bloghosting platforms Wordpress, Blogger and Tumblr have enabled membersof the public to express themselves in previously unattainable ways. They can now

adopt personalities (Connels Court), pseudonyms of anonymity or become ajournalist (Newspie) with thousands of internet users as their audience._______________________________________________________________References:

Offline:

Boyd d, 2007, None Of This Is Real: Identity and Participation inFriendster, 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 OurCulture and Assaulting Our Economy, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London

Jones S G, 1998, Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-MediatedCommunication 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/

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DIGC101 - Reflective Essay