The Rise of Blogs as a Product of Cybervoyeurism

Joanne Jacobs

Brisbane Graduate School of Business, Queensland University of Technology

Definitions and background

• Reverse chronological posting of items/articles– Usually containing hyperlinks– Often with comments based responses.

• Term derived from ‘web logs’, and publication of 1999 essay ‘The Anatomy of a Weblog’

• Blogger.com, Slashdot, Boingboing, Instapundit, Livejournal, Metafilter, etc.

• Blogdex – the first index of blog links (MIT Media Lab)• Google acquired Pyra (developer of Blogger interface in

March 2003)

A Culture of Narcissism

• Christopher Lasch’s work chronicled narcissism as a metaphor for the human condition

• Important to note this is the clinical definition of narcissism, not the generic diluted understanding

• Social climate based on co-dependence and social dissatisfaction, not arrogance and self-glorification

• Blogs provide a forum, voice, channel for oral cravings, otherwise unavailable to society

Heidegger and ‘truth’

• Modern research on internet and technology grows on theories of Lasch (particularly Rowley 1997).

• Rowley focusses on Heidegger’s notin of technology as a channel for achieving highest human aspirations

• Truth revealed through technology itself• Bloggers feel that truth is achieved through

social filtering of traditional media content

Truth Part 2

• Rowley notes the dangers of framing is that technologies ultimately represent what is real, or true.

• Blogs as a channel for truth are ultimately influenced by their inherently self-referential nature, but perhaps represent a more interactive process of understanding than traditional media

Bloggers and voices

• Varying styles of blog posts mean bloggers present themselves as fluid identities

• Styles include:– Notebook (essay)– Personal journal– Annotated links– News

• Because bloggers want to drive traffic to their sites, they mix styles to capitalise on voyeuristic characteristics of readership

• This is not arrogance in bloggers, but co-dependence and dissatisfaction with traditional media avenues for comment

‘Whuffie’ & content as social currency

• Cory Doctorow’s concept of ‘whuffie’• Tender based on reputation rather than financial

markets (irony = BlogShares)• Rushkoff’s sense that content is the basis for

communication contributes to this idea because the content of blog posts form the channel for interaction, and the opportunity to generate whuffie

Voyeurism & media content

• Voyeuristic content development is reinforced by current mainstream media trend towards reality programming

• War blog of Salam Pax was the ultimate in reality blogging

• Moblogging of events becoming popular• “I’m blogging this”

Privacy and exhibitionism

• General consensus among commentators is that sense of personal privacy is altering

• Bloggers are unconcerned about privacy being protected (see Mead, 2002)

• Value of reputation outstripping privacy (hence co-dependence, dissatisfaction)

• Voyeurism of blog readers needs satisfaction, just as exhibitionism (oral cravings) of bloggers need satisfaction

Power law distribution

• Based on Zipf distribution• Jakob Nielsen has identified power law

distribution as a function of website popularity• Google search engine and search query

responses based on linkages• Nature of blogs based on cross-posting

inherently follows power law distribution• Late adopters can still achieve ‘power’ through

increasing specialisation

Legal implications & longevity

• Longevity of posts can be beyond immediate interest. Voice in blogs has greater degree of influence than spoken word, due to access, search facilities and repeated quotations

• Rise in legal issues related to hosted sites and hence blogs is inevitable

• Some movement already to standard disclaimers

Conclusions

• Social movement towards internet as a defining element in our lives (see http://internetisshit.org/)

• Blogs represent an opportunity to develop reputation as well as satisfying vicarious living and creation of fluid identities among both bloggers and readers

• Future of blogs still likely to grow – this is a symptom of the social condition rather than one of arrogance or self-glorification.

• Loss of (traditional interpretations of) privacy and a growing litigious potential is the result of the phenomenon

Contact details

Joanne JacobsBrisbane Graduate School of BusinessQueensland University of TechnologyGPO Box 2434Brisbane, QLD, 4001Ph: (+61 7) 3864 2065Fax: (+61 7) 3864 1299Email: joanne@joannejacobs.netBlog: http://joannejacobs.net/