Blogging blogs
I have valued many of the numerous replies we`ve had on this.
In particular, those taking seriously the need for a very critical approach to the source of evidence, positionality etc, using blogs- often seen as an easy [lazy] res source.
Also the strong points that imply, rightly, the need for strong caution in terms of the notions of participation that may or may not be assisted through a tendency to prioritise such as blogs. [reminds of the romance of the internet generally 15 years ago- I like the recent good journalism articles clearly arguing that it was good journalism, not simply twittering alone that have brought some, if still uncertain, and worrying, progressive participation in northern Africa.]
And specifically, the need for critical thinking about whose voices blogs represent, who/s are absent.
Ironically that is balanced a bit by the pointed-out hugely greater ease of access to blogs for people working /living where much other online and paper based stuff is not available that can be totally appreciated. Again, that makes the cautious use of the stuff perhaps even more critical [less to compare it with].
Slightly aligned to that note, the problem/challenge of internet access to anywhere land`s printed texts is the discipline of judgement, selectivity and so on: that becomes so in blogging, too.
And what about the kind of individuals who blog-engage, and who do not, concerning eg age, ethnicity, etc?
Blogs are unedited; we are reading often very raw stuff, and anyone can be misled if they think that blogstuff carries anything like equal weight with proper, developed journal pieces, etc. [maybe bloggs shd all have a user warning `[very] rough ideas on progress 1, 2, 3 etc] [I do not mean this to say editorial process- perfect : blogging imperfect either!!!]. and someone implied they felt many more people had read their blog than their articles etc. I am not sure if this is a good thing per se… or not.
There are many sincere and cautious bloggers and blogs. They don’t carry equal weight of course. I do find there is plenty of blogging that is bragging; the mode of blogging lends itself, I suggest, much more to this than other means of voicing.
Anyway, all the best
David
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From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Francis Leo Collins [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 04 March 2011 07:40
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Critical use of Blogs as research data
A day in the life of twitter (with the same limitations in terms of what its recording) has been mapped by Chris McDowell here:
http://sciblogs.co.nz/seeing-data/2010/11/25/mapping-a-day-in-the-life-of-twitter/
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From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce D'Arcus [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, 4 March 2011 5:41 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Critical use of Blogs as research data
On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 4:25 PM, Muki Haklay <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> While there are all sort of ways to 'mine' or 'mechanically process' information from twitter, blogs and other sources, this should be done with a lot of caution and awareness to who is participating and all sort of biases.
>
> First, all these media is suffering from 'participation inequality' which means that few people contribute a lot, while most people contribute very little - and because of the big numbers or the size of the contribution from the vocal sources, you notice them more than the others, multiple but much more quieter voices.
>
> Second, there is a gender imbalance in some sources - blogs for example, but also in Wikipedia contribution, OpenStreetMap mappers (my pet subject) or twitter.
>
> Third, the digital divide or just digital ignorance means that you will notice the voices of the affluent and not people who are poor.
>
> Fourth, there is some tendency for clustering around similar points of view (best demonstrated in the climate change bloggosphare with little connection between camps).
>
> Fifth, you're exluding voices that are confident in verbal communication but don't feel secure in their writing.
>
> There are other factors ...
>
> So just use critical thinking when you approach such sources - a lot of the current analysis glosses over these biases.
All of this is great, but it doesn't actually us very far in terms of
concrete data sources to critically analyze. The volume of data we're
talking about with something like twitter is pretty astounding.
For sake of argument, say I want to know something pretty basic, and
that in and of itself isn't that interesting, but might offer fodder
for further exploration: in the two week period after January 24,
2011, where did tweets originate with the hastag #jan25? What are the
patterns of retweets?
Can I do that? If yes, how (technically)?
I don't want to clog peoples' inboxes. If anyone wants to pick this up
off-list, or on twitter, feel free.
Bruce
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