Blogging: Past, Present and Future ISR Forum June 8, 2004 Bonnie A. Nardi

1. Blogging: Past, Present and Future • ISR Forum • June 8, 2004 • Bonnie A. Nardi • School of Information and Computer Science • University of California, Irvine, USA

2. Blogging is… image link • A series of archived Internet posts in reverse chronological order, • usually with links, sometimes with pictures Evan, a graduate student in genetics post date

3. Blogging Past: 1985 • Orson Scott Card predicted blogs in Ender’s Game. • Valentine and Peter create a political column posted on “the nets” • They are delighted when their posts are taken seriously and • “[some of their phrases] showed up in the major debates • on the prestige nets.” • Just like today’s bloggers who often look for their posts to reach • a wider audience.

4. Blogging Present: • Research conducted Spring 2003--now with • Diane Schiano (Stanford) • Michelle Gumbrecht (Stanford) • Luke Swartz (Stanford, Navy) • Interviews with 23 bloggers in and around Stanford • people we could interview in person in our locale • follow-ups in email, phone, instant messaging • still reading the blogs and corresponding with informants • Text analysis of blogs • Use of blog material with permission • Generalizations about blogging based on this sample

5. Sample • Ethnic mix roughly typical of Silicon Valley and Stanford European-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos, one European • 16 men, 7 women • Ages 19-60 • Well-educated middle class people who like to write

6. Who’s blogging? • Four group blogs: • Two educational blogs • A political “collective” • Work blog at a research institute

7. Who’s blogging? • Eighteen Individually authored blogs, including: • a philosopher who wrote criticism of rock music • a technology consultant who specialized in underdeveloped countries • a graduate student in genetics • a biostatistician • an undergraduate who planned to become a romance novelist…

8. Blogs are like private radio stations • Blogs have been characterized as diaries, journals, a literary genre • But they are: • • a broadcast medium of limited interactivity • Bloggers like to: • • give opinions • • dispense advice • • stay in touch

9. Bloggers feed off their audience • Dan, a Stanford student: • Even if it only takes you ten minutes, yeah I try to say, ‘Okay, right before I go to bed, I’m gonna type something out’ and then it’s like, ‘Well, I’m feeling tired now, I’ll just do that another day,’ and then you just fall asleep…and then you’re just sitting there saying, ‘Yeah this blog is kinda sucky.’ Your friends like look at it and they’re like, ‘What the hell happened to your blog? I can’t follow along with what’s happening in your life!’ • The blog creates the audience and the audience creates the blog • Blog writers and readers together constitute the social activity of • blogging

10. Bloggers are mindful of their audience • “Blogs can have an edge but you should not throw a bomb.” • “Yeah…My mom mentioned something that was in my blog • …My grandma reads it, too; she just got Internet…That means • that I kind of have to censor--less cursing and stuff.” • One untenured professor would not put anything “political” on his blog. • A student said if he had “anything bad” to say about someone, • he would make the entry private. Public entries were kept “clean.” • A political blogger said, “There’s pressure to make sure you don’t • send something offensive…If you’re inflammatory--no more links to • you anymore.”

11. Why do bloggers blog? 1. Seek opinions and feedback • Express opinions to influence others • Inform others 4. Update on activities and whereabouts 5. “Think by writing” 6. Release emotional tension These activities link bloggers to their readers, establish social connection Not mutually exclusive

12. Seek others’ opinions: • Jack, a graduate student in English at Stanford (now an assistant • professor at the University of Toronto): …I'd hit a bit of a rut with the blog, feeling as if I was crafting these long pieces that no one was really responding to, and that others who were producing much shorter, impressionistic pieces were getting more attention. I decided to loosen up a bit, which in part meant lowering my resistance to putting my own poems up. I…discovered that allowing myself to post poems was helping me write poems, since I could think of it as material for the blog to be immediately posted, as opposed to being stowed in a drawer somewhere.

13. Express opinions to influence others

14. Evan, a grad student in genetics • February 16, 2004 • "Traditional" Agriculture • ScienceDaily News Release: Traditional Iroquois Methods Work For Today's Farmers • Blah blah blah. The fact that we don't put enough money into ecology research has nothing to do with philosophical differences between Western science and Native American mysticism. We don't study ecology because the Republicans control Congress and they don't believe in global warming. • Posted by Rikurzhen at 02:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) • Shower Curtain Microbiology • Biohazard lurks in bathrooms: Shower curtains awash with potentially harmful bacteria. • Wash your shower curtain every couple weeks. Otherwise, you'll be showering • with a cloud of opportunistic pathogens. • Likewise, you should store kitchen sponges in a cup of weak bleach solution. • Store your tooth brushes in mouthwash or the like. • Posted by Rikurzhen at 02:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Evan offered opinions and suggested actions

15. Inform Others Sam, a technology consultant: Bill Gates was interviewed on television by Bill Moyers and he had made some interesting statements a couple of years ago…I thought it was a very interesting interview about…the needs of technology for certain areas and how…Gates thinks they [personal computers] are inappropriate for other [areas], which surprised a lot of people, that Bill Gates would even say that. So I put in my reaction to that on [the blog] and pointed people to the whole transcript, which was probably the only way people outside the U.S. could’ve seen the content with the comments….So they’ll go to the weblog and read my impressions and then they’ll see how they can go to the full transcript…Previously, I might’ve just said “interesting transcript about Bill Gates on this PBS site” [on my website].

16. Update others on activities and whereabouts • Jack • Off tomorrow to Massachusetts, home of your Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. (But--sorry Jim --I won't be anywhere near Boston.) I'll trust you all to hold down the fort until Friday.

17. “Thinking by writing” • Evan said he needed an “outlet” for “thinking by writing.” he used the blog to see if he had anything to say about the newspapers and journals he read • Alan, a historian of science, said the blog “forced” him to write, • which was good so he could refine his ideas through writing. • Jack said he used his blog to “prove to myself that I can [write].” • The public forum of the blog, with its audience, encourages • writing. • The periodicity of the blog also helps, to establish a rhythm • for writing.

18. Release of emotional tension • “Me working out my own issues” • Blogs enabled people to express deeply felt emotions, • to: • “let off steam” • “get it out there” • “shout” • write about things they felt “obsessive” or “passionate” about

19. Vivian, an attorney The Shout: Opinions on Everything • Amazing is the story of Uganda's civil war that I heard last night on NPR. One of many rebel Monday, December 08, 2003 • *Amazing is the story of Uganda's civil war that I heard last night on NPR. One of many rebel armies armies fighting against the single party government is the Lord's Resistance Movement, "best known for its abduction of thousands of Acholi Ugandan children to serve as involuntary soldiers and, in the case of girls, "wives" or concubines for the LRA officers. Extreme brutality is used to keep the children in line, including torture and forcing children to participate in the killing of other children who try to escape." See HRW report…For more information about the country, and the political economy behind this bizarro religious and social tale, you can read here. • Vivian expressed her “amazement” at the news story and urged others • to read more, providing links

20. Blogs as social activity encapsulated in bloggers’ motto: Blogito Ergo Sum • Not in the Descartian sense of “I exist,” but in a social sense of • “I exist with you through the blog.”

21. Controlled interactivity • Bloggers liked the controlled or limited interactivity of blogs. • Blogs were seen as more “voluntary,” less “intrusive” than • other online media. Readers could choose to read, or not. • Blogs seen as less interactive than email, listservs,instant messaging, • and chat. • Tammy: So I can give them the choice…it’s like I put it [on the blog] • and then if they want to see what’s going on with me, they • can go see it. They don’t have to like wade through their inbox… • Jack: Listservs often have high levels of invective and • rage. On the blog, because you are not talking directly to • a specific individual, you can be more reflective.

22. What about comments in blogs? • Ron used a blog in his writing class at Stanford: • Blog comments are allowed and encouraged, but they’re • also very clearly rhetorically subservient, you know, to the main • post. • Modal number of comments on individually authored blogs is • zero (Herring et al. 2004) • Interaction often happens outside the blog

23. Why might blogs be useful at work? • Blogs are a “grassroots” technology that many pick up on their own, • or at the urging of friends • People spontaneously use them to seek feedback, get others’ • opinions, update and inform others -- all useful at work • Similar grassroots technologies include email, html, and • instant messaging • -> Invented by technical end users for themselves, then diffused • to millions of users, • -> Have found their way into the workplace.

24. Of course, just setting up a blog isn’t enough • Archaeology class blog we studied did not lead to student posts • Functioned as a website • Little interaction • Have to find a “hook” to get students/workers blogging

25. Interactions about blog posts often take place in: • instant messaging • phone • email • face to face communication…

26. Handling conflict about a blog post through email • (and then back to the blog)

27. Darryl, a poet, reviewed a poetry book in his blog: • "The more quiet, modest modes of Asian poetry appeal as an • alternative to our overblown emotions" -- • An email exchange took place between Darryl and Jack. Jack, • an Asian-American, questioned what he considered a racial stereotype. • But Jack said nothing on his blog. • Darryl asked, in email, “Why not?”

28. Jack then wrote in his blog:It seems silence might have been more troubling than overblown emotions-- Darryl wrote me [in email] hoping I would clarify. So, donning my scholar's robes, I will proceed to an explication of silence... My initial objection was to a line in the review of Gary Sullivan's "How to Proceed in the Arts" that Darryl posted on Monday. In his remarks on the section "70 Lines from the Chinese," Darryl wrote: "The more quiet, modest modes of Asian poetry appeal as an alternative to our overblown emotions." My immediate response was that this assertion perpetuates a common stereotype of Asian reserve, modesty, and deference, one that while seemingly innocent enough, can have repressive implications, suggesting that the East is less capable of speaking for itself than the West…I should say that this reaction is not a literary judgment based on my familiarity with Chinese poetry, of which I know very little; rather, it was a reaction against an orientalist stereotype that has real implications for how Asians are perceived in America.

29. Here the troubling material is discussed in email, and then • a very polite exchange takes place in the blog. • There is a level of indirection in blogs that bloggers prized. • This quality of controlled interactivity is vital to the success of • blogs so that people feel free to post creative product such as • poems, or feelings about their work, or critiques of their • organizations. • This limited or controlled interactivity is fragile and will have to be protected • through social conventions. People are not always so polite while blogging, • and they do step on people’s toes, but bloggers said they calibrated • audience response very carefully, attempting tact, avoiding “flames.”

30. Blogging Future: More and better blogsAt home, work, school and in politics….My future research: Relationship of blogs and related websites to other media • E.g., Spinsanity, “The nation's leading watchdog of manipulative political rhetoric” • started small (couple of former Stanford students) • evolved to a column in the Phildelphia Inquirer • forthcoming book All the President’s Spin from Simon and Schuster move from digital to print • Such blogs and related websites such as moveon.org and rightmarch.com which attempt to influence politics.