Hi Kris,



There might not be so much of a problem with blogs being seen as naïve or 
fashionable, but with the image of bloggers as opinionated bullies who seek 
to drown out the oh-so balanced and well-researched mainstream 
media/research (I remember reading a study about this). It is an image that 
many bloggers who do not identify with this image feel they have to publicly 
distance themselves from (e.g. in your first point). Fears where the content 
of the blog posts or comments are going to end up are also an issue.



I started my blog (Mutable Matter) around the same time as you as an 
experimental part of my project. Originally, it was intended as a feedback 
forum for Open University undergraduates I wanted to involve in the study. 
But over time, it developed into something much more complex. I currently 
blog in two categories which could be called 'project updates' and 'thought 
on and around the subject'. Some of this will reflect your own experiences, 
and I hope may contribute to the discussion.



(1)   I enjoy the spontaneity of blogging, and for this reason have set 
myself a time-rule that I cannot spend more than a certain number of hours 
on a blog post to prevent if from getting 'overworked' and lose its initial 
creative spark. Offering 'rough work' may also contribute to blog visitors 
finding more hooks and crevices to hang their own thoughts from.

(2)   The blog has become a space where I can experiment with writing - even 
slight changes in writing style can elicit different reactions and attract 
different audiences. E.g. longer, balanced analyses mix with shorter 
'outbursts' of questions or caricatures of specific views.

(3)   It has become a platform where I offer thoughts on the subject from 
different starting points/angles and am sometimes get feedback from readers. 
The feedback is not always useful or directly useful to my project (e.g. if 
I write a book review and commentators complain about the author rather than 
focus on the content of the book/review), but often it is.

(4)   It helps me explore (to some degree at least) who is attracted to the 
subject/style and what kind of information the blog visitors are after. As a 
blog administrator I can see what kind of word combinations people enter 
into a search engine to get to a specific article as well as the links they 
follow on a post. This also gives me a sense that I am helping people find 
sources of information, so the mutual exchanges work in more directions that 
just the 'I have written something for you/me, you give me feedback/you 
state your opinion' way.

(5)   There have been quite a few unexpected developments. E.g. that my blog 
has ended up on the blogroll of reputable institutions I had never 
associated with the topic or it got quoted from in places I had never 
expected blog material to end up in (these were very positive experiences). 
The networking aspect of the blog was also surprising, e.g. I have received 
a few invitations to do or talk about the project, or people have made 
recommendations about who to contact to discuss the topic or where I could 
do the practical part of my project.

(6)   Sometimes, discussions between different blog owners occur. The 
discussion does not necessarily happen on your blog, but your blog is 
involved in it - and what you have written presents the background your 
opinions are coming from. Discussants can retrieve quotes from each other's 
blogs (as well as the internet or their books at home) and can thus dig 
quite deeply into the matter in question/your viewpoint and useful 
discussions can take place over weeks.



I wonder if you also had any thoughts on blogs from other disciplines. I am 
finding the blog culture of the natural sciences very interesting, for 
example.



Angela

http://mutablematter.wordpress.com