I haven't been able to keep up with this conversation in full, but I wanted to comment on Margi's point about individualisation of social activism in/through/reflected in(?) blogging - my apologies if my comments are repeats of what others have said.
The best (in my opinion) activist blogs are those that are open to a large number of people to contribute - some limit that to members, or certain members, others enable literally anyone to write a blog post: a bit like a Wiki, but without the edit function. (I will have a rummage in my web browser history and see if I can come up with some examples.)
There is also the fact that the best bits about a lot of activist blogs are the conversation threads in comments - although these do have a tendency to descend into 'flame wars' when the subject is particularly touchy (e.g. many of the comment threads on Sadie Doyle's blog, Tiger Beatdown, a US-based feminist blog*: http://http://tigerbeatdown.com/).
Whether these multivocal and conversational aspects of blogging actually count as something other than individualisation is not clear, to me at least, but it does point to there being more than 'preaching' going on.
Elinor
* This used to be sub-titled "Lady Business" but now, due to the growing threat to abortion rights in the US at present (e.g. proposals in Georgia that all women who have miscarried be investigated by police to ensure it wasn't an abortion!), has been re-sub-titled "Fetus Business".
Elinor Predota
PhD Candidate
Geography Department
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
http://newcastle.academia.edu/ElinorPredota/
http://twitter.com/ellie_nor/
________________________________________
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Margi Bryant [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 04 March 2011 12:23
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Critical use of Blogs as research data
This has been a great discussion strand and has prompted my first post on
Critters!
Muki's comments chime with some of my findings from discourse analysis of blogs.
I’m doing my PhD research on international volunteering, so I've looked at
blogs written by volunteers, who are often exhorted to blog by the
organisations they’re working with, as a means of promoting the cause and
raising funds. Such blogs convey the authorial voice of a named and usually
pictured volunteer writing about their own experiences with the organisation or
project, plus or minus personal details and background. The blogs therefore
foreground individual actors, often at the expense of the collaborative
endeavour of (non-blogging) others, assign primary agency to volunteers and/or
the organisation they represent, and externalise the impetus for social change.
When the volunteers are from the global North and are working in the global
South, this reproduces or revives a model of external agency and expertise
which has been problematised and critiqued for decades, and which many critics
would see as 'neocolonial'. Of course it’s possible to use blogs differently,
which some of the organisations I’m looking at do, but overall I’m coming to
the conclusion that, in my research area at least, blogging signals a drift to
greater individualisation in the representation (and reality?) of social
activism.
I’d be interested to know if anyone else is thinking about tensions and
disconnects between the individualised tendencies of authored blogs and the
democratisation of communication media?
Thanks and best wishes,
Margi
Margi Bryant
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Geography
University of Sheffield
Winter Street
Sheffield S10 2TN
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 7833 684 765
[log in to unmask]
www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/students/pg/margibryant.html
Quoting Muki Haklay <[log in to unmask]>:
> 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.
>
> On 03/03/2011 21:12, Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 2:55 PM, Dr. Paul B. Williams
> > <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >> I have been enjoying this thread on blogging and am amazed at how many
> >> colleagues are using this medium.
> >>
> >> The thread got me thinking about issues associated with the critical use
> of
> >> blogsites as sources of primary research data. I am beginning to use
> >> blogsites associated with places, meanings and sense of identity in my
> own
> >> research. I have collected a number of these - not generally academic
> blogs
> >> - over the last couple of years with an interest not only in the blog
> itself
> >> but also opinions/ views within the accompanying commentaries. I am aware
> of
> >> the concerns about objectivities/ subjectivities associated with such
> sites,
> >> but I do think they give a snapshot in time.
> >>
> >> So, has anyone else been mining such sites for data? If so, what issues
> have
> >> you encountered? Have you come across any literature about their use in
> >> geographical research?
> > I've not (but am curious).
> >
> > I gather people in the "Digital Humanities" world might have something
> > to say on this. Dan Cohen has an extensive list on Twitter:
> >
> > <http://twitter.com/dancohen/digitalhumanities>
> >
> > I'm more curious about mining twitter data, but haven't figured out a
> > productive way to do that.
> >
> > Bruce
>
> --
>
> Dr. Muki Haklay: Senior Lecturer in GIS
> Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering
> University College London (UCL)
> Gower St. London WC1E 6BT
> T: +44 20 7679 2745
> E: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> W: http://www.ge.ucl.ac.uk/~mhaklay/ <http://www.ge.ucl.ac.uk/%7Emhaklay/>
> Towards Successful Suburban Town Centres - www.sstc.ucl.ac.uk
> <http://www.sstc.ucl.ac.uk/>
> Bridging the Gaps - www.ucl.ac.uk/btg <http://www.ucl.ac.uk/btg/>
> Mapping for Change - www.mappingforchange.org.uk
> <http://www.mappingforchange.org.uk>
> Po ve Sham blog - povesham.wordpress.com <http://povesham.wordpress.com>
>
>
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