In internet, people can communicate through many different ways like chat room or discussion broad. For years, these communication patterns remained without significant changes. Recently, the weblog emerged quickly and widely in the internet world. The format of personnel diaries, people posting their thoughts and ideas shared and commented by interested parties in weblog is widely adapted which scholars around the world started to analysis the significant impact to our culture. This essay will illustrate some significant influences and advantages of weblog to people’s life and society and the downside brought by it.
Autobiography is one of the major features of weblog. By writing down whatever in mind, confronting personnel thoughts and opinion everyday, blogger can become a more confident writer. From the commentary of readers in the net, one may gain support, become more confidence, and understand his view of the world. When reading the commentary from readers, one will analyze each person’s point of view. Through these blog conversations, one may form conclusion on some issues. As a result, blogging became a process of self-discovery and self-understanding.
Moreover, autobiographical writing in blogs gave people opportunities to express independent thoughts, innovative ideas and even idolize behavior, which in some cases bloggers can lead fashion trends, and shape the attitudes of visitors. As there is no need to worry about the problems when interacting with real people, expression can be more open up, a blogger’s behaviour can turn from introverted to extroverted. A different personality and identity in the internet, therefore the identity of blogger is not a representation of a real person but similar to the character of an actor. Life in cyberspace to some extend is an escape of internet user.
In addition, there is a similar phenomenon among these expressive autobiographies. They are usually in a deep sense of melancholy.[1] For example, “ Marn’s Big Adventure,2003”, using weblog as a tool to express deep emotions. In 2003, Marn was informed by veterinarian that there was no choice but to terminate her cat Zoe’s life.[2] As Marn’s parents had passed away in early years, Zoe accompanied with Marn for nearly twenty years. As she expressed her feelings in her blog, and after visiting Marn’s blog, many readers were deeply touched. Endless expressions of sorrow and caring were sent to her blog. Living in societies which we hardly know our next door neighbors, online communication may fulfill the need of emotional support in real life.
From a practical perspective, stressful city life is another cause for the popularity of blogging. Today’s working class has long working hours, people have little time to spend in their social life. Moreover, the competitive working environment is complicated. People may not be willing to have open conversations with others. Scholars claim that the phenomenon of the increase of virtual communities is due to the disappearing of informal public spaces from our real lives. [3] As a result, the weblog became an effective communication platform to fulfill the need of true conversations and speedy communications.
In an interview with bloggers in Hong Kong of RTHK’s television programme in 2007, a lady often used the internet to send virtual gifts (an idea in the Facebook) to her friends. Then she can save a lot of time in meeting them, but their relationships are the same as before. Another case is about a company director. He was able to gain a better understanding and consideration of his difficulties from his staff after he had opened up himself in his blog, and had open conversations with them on the internet. His staffs were then getting to know him better. New habits in blogging gave enlightenment to social life.
Another variable thing in blogging is the content itself. In weblog people share their findings and interesting information which they think its worth to tell others. The content provided on blogs is in different varieties from sports and movies to science and history. These information is variable when it is used as a lubricator in social occasions.[4] For example, a good joke from the net can be an excuse to start a discussion with attractive people in party. The joke itself is like a social currency, just like some successful TV shows, they give viewers something to take about with one another the next day. Same as in weblog, people share the information from they have collected through their daily lives. Sending an e-mail of jokes, sender thinks he has given you a gift. In memorizing it, we can bring it some where else.
Nevertheless, people who live in rural areas can make use of weblog to build connection with others and overcome geographical limitations. For example, in the case of “WELL” which is a famous virtual community. Its members are living far apart in the San Francisco Bay area, and they were unable to hold many face to face social activities. However, members of WELL are closely connected. They have many online activities like marriages, births, funeral, parent conference and even emotional support groups.[5] Technology has enabled them to vitalize their social life through weblog communication.
Liberation of speech for private voice to public domain is another contribution of weblog to our society. In the past, private life of individuals is a subject of gossip within a community, and a unique voice is hard to be influential to public. Especially, under the dominance of mass media, individuals are more difficult to participate in public discourse. Weblog became new channel for individual expression, and gave opportunities for them to express their private thoughts in public sphere; the liberation from the authority of parents, peers and institutions. During the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, many bloggers provided first-hand and personal perspectives on the tragic event.[6] Eventually, weblog drew the world attention that a new medium of private voice in gathering and sharing information emerged.
Weblog also give rise to the formation of virtual communities, people with like minds form different kinds of communities in cyber space. Some of these communities are so powerful and influential that they can share power from traditional and market dominated institutions. For example, journal blogs in weblog: Cyberjournalist.net.
Independence journalists publish news on their blog. This is a publishing revolution, since it was the first time that journalists can become their own editors and publishers, and they can directly access to audience.[7] This act was likely to weaken the power of one-way communication in formal publishing and broadcast journalism.
Finally, weblog also help our society in fighting inequalities. Any significant incident that happens in the world, through the effort of blogger, can easily gain public attention. In 2007, a group of people in China, have posted a letter on forum site, claiming that their children were forced to work as slaves in illegal brick kilns in Shaanxi. They were failed to get assistance from local government. After they publicized this incident in internet, they got widely support from public. In response to the serious concern of public, the central government of China intervened this
incident and saved 1000 children.[8] Similar cases have happened in many other places of the world. Bloggers are more influential in political aspect. Inequalities in society are now more difficult to cover up.
The contributions of weblog to individual life and society are significant, there are a lot of writings and case studies about it. However, it is also important to examine the disadvantages of blogging. Like in printing and publishing business, as weblog is a platform for unlimited reproduction and distribution of written words at low cost; there is no entry barrier, no economics of scale and no limited on supply. Mass of amateur writers is enabled to publish their work globally through the access of personal computers. Since in traditional publishing business, they need financial investment to support. Their operation can act as a filter to control and a text’s quality. Some great works are more difficult to gain readers attention, when more people are able to publicize their work through blogging. Amateurish writings in weblogs are likely to undermind some important values of traditional publishing.
As mentioned before, autobiographical writings can build celebrity in cyberspace, idolize behaviour and melancholic writings are fascinations for some blog readers. This can refer to the mediated voyeurism emerged from1990 in American mass media, some confessions about celebrities’ private life.[9] This came from the desire of audience for excitement, given by the illusion of involving in somebody’s private life. As in weblog, identity of blogger is not a representation of a real person, what happened in virtual community can also be a simulation. To be heavily obsessed by it, one’s direct experience in real life will be devalued. In referring to the case of “Marn’s Big Adventure,2003”. In the interview of “Marn”, the blogger’s nickname, she said that she does feel friendship and support from readers by that moment but actually she is not. There is no communal interaction in it, and it is nothing more than verbal expression.[10] This indicates a problem in virtual community that the forming of illusion can confuse real life experience.
In modern world, the cohesion between people and community is fragile. Blogging on one hand is a useful tool for lonely people to get connected to the outside world. On the other hand weblog can also be a powerful tool of political force, like terrorists, to use weblog as an alternate system of political propaganda. The cyberspace is full of aggressors and bigots. Recently, there are corporations between bloggers and commercial enterprises. Promotion of new technology invited bloggers to guide their viewers in selecting the new products.[11] Celebrity bloggers seems to have powerful impact on their viewers. Since blogs can float freely in cyberspace, blogger’s power can be enormous
.
In conclusion, weblog’s popularity is growing in high speed. A survey in 2004 found that new blogs increased by 15 times from 2000 to 2004 with over ten millions participates in the world.[12] The popularity of weblog is certainly has great impact to our society. From the research and studies of weblog, it gave an impression that weblog covered wide range of aspects like education, communication, politics, business, etc. With the advanced function as a personnal diary, it gave power to individuals in publicizing their ideas to the world. New kinds of cultural trends like virtual community and the exist of virtual celebrity. Although, someone would worry about its growing influence to our society, and the virtual statue of weblog which is not under control from any authorities, but the contributions and positive influences of weblog in the previous years is remarkable.
Footnotes:
[1] Michael Keren, Blogoshere-The New Political Arena, (Britain: Lexington Books, 2006), pp.21
[2] Michael Keren, Blogoshere-The New Political Arena, (Britain: Lexington Books, 2006), pp.91
[3] Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community, (Britain: The British Printing Company Limited, 1994),pp.276.
[4] Rebecca Blood, We’ve got blog, (United States of America: Perseus Publishing, 2002), pp.118.
[5] Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community, (Britain: The British Printing Company Limited, 1994),pp.273.
[6] Michael Keren, Blogoshere-The New Political Arena, (Britain: Lexington Books, 2006), pp.5.
[7] http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogging_as_social_action_a_genre_analysis_of_the_weblog.html (10.12.2007)
[8] http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/template.printACopy/page.scmp_printacop... (10.12.2007)
[9] http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogging_as_social_action_a_genre_analysis_of_the_weblog.html (10.12.2007)
[10] Michael Keren, Blogoshere-The New Political Arena, (Britain: Lexington Books, 2006), pp.91
[11] Michael Keren, Blogoshere-The New Political Arena, (Britain: Lexington Books, 2006), pp.144
[12] http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogging_as_social_action_a_genre_analysis_of_the_weblog.html (10.12.2007)
Biliography
Books:
1) Blood, Rebecca, We’ve got blog, (United States of America: Perseus Publishing, 2002).
2) Keen, Andrew, The cult of the amateur: how today’s internet is killing our culture, (New York, Double Day Currency, 2007).
3)Keren, Michael, Blogosphere-The New Political Arena, (Britain: Lexington Books, 2006).
4) Kline, David, & Burstein, Dan, Blog!, (New York: Squibnocket Partners,2005).
5) Nashville, Tenn, Blog:Understanding the information reformation that’s changing your world, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2005).
6) Rheingold, Howard, The Virtual Community, (Britain: The British Printing Limited, 1995).
Websites:
1) http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere
2) http://www.scmp.com
2007年12月13日 星期四
2007年10月25日 星期四
Karen’s research on weblog and virtual Community
In the internet, people can communicate through many different ways like chat room or discussion broad. For years, these communication patterns remained without significant changes. Recently, the weblog emerged quickly and widely in the internet world. The format of personnel diaries and people posting their thoughts and ideas shared and commented by interested parties is now developed into different kinds of online communities which scholars around the world started to analysis their significant impacts to our culture. From the readings about weblog, I found some interesting features. On one hand it’s a kind of self-expression, a person can publicize his or her private life in public space of internet, making friends with people on the other side of the planet. On the other hand it’s a group or a community of certain interest and sometimes it is so powerful, like cyberjournalist. It shares power from one-way communication of formal print and broadcast journalism. Weblog have potential influence on society and also on personal life.
The study of weblog can cover wide areas, such as gender, identity, mass communication, education and virtual community. And weblogs can also be classify into many categories: adult, teen, camgirl, computer, entertainment, humor, movies, music, news, personal, photography, video games, etc. Most blogs are primarily textual but some of them are photoblogs, videoblogs and audioblogs. There are three primary features of weblog: the chronological structure, the frequent updating, and the provided links and commentary. A survey in 2003 found that new blogs increased by 600% between 2000 and 2001 with over four million blogs by the time of survey and 10 million projected by the end of 2004.(1) Millions of people on every continent participate in blogging.
People in blogs use words on screen to communicate, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct commerce, exchange knowledge, share emotional support, brainstorm, find friends, etc. Through the worldwide telecommunication network and personal computers social groups and communities formed in the cyberspace, known as virtual community. It is a social aggregation that emerge from the internet, people involve in public discussion with sufficient human feeling, and form webs of personal relationship in cyberspace. Virtual communities are important because they can replace the relationships lost when people became more isolated from their community. It also allow people to connect with others from around the world with similar interests and benefit from social relationships.
A blogger can call mass attention to a social incident. In China, a professor through his blog called for public attention to abandon the construction of a factory which potentially threatens public health and environment. Alternatively, when weblog became the platform of low cost publishing, mass of amateurish writers enable to publish their work. As traditional print publishing can act as filter to consider the quality of the text, it will be difficult for some great works to call attention from the readers. Weblog do have influence to our life and society, in both positive and negative side. As it happens in a cyberspace with no govern and no control, its development and impacts is unpredictable.
In further study, I would analysis the influence of weblog to individual life, the impacts of virtual communities to the real world in practice and certain kinds of cultural trends evoke by blogging. From the notion of Howard Reingold ‘The phenomenon of virtual communities is due to the disappearing of informal public spaces from our real lives.’ (2) This would be a direction to find out why weblog is so widely adapted. Is there anything that weblog can help us to solve the problems brought by stressful city life and globalization?
Footnotes
1) Carolyn R. Miller and Dawn Sheoherd, “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog”. Available: http:/www.blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/
2) Howard Reingold, “The Virtual Community” in David Trend (ed.), Reading Digital Culture, P.276
Bibliography
Books:
1) Blog!: How the Newest Media Revolution is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture. Authors: David Kline, Dan Burstein, Arne J. De Keijzer, Paul Berber Publisher: New York CDS
2) We’ve got blog: how weblogs are changing our culture. Author: Rodzvilla, John. Publisher: Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 2002.
3) Deeper: my two year odyssey in cyberspace. Author: Seabrook, John. Publisher: New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
4) The cult of the amateur, how today’s Internet is killing our culture. Author: Keen, Andrew. Publisher: New York: Doubleday/ Currency, 2007.
5) Blog: understanding the information reformation that’s changing your world. Author: Hewitt, Hugh. Publisher: Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2005
6) Howard Reingold, “The Virtual Community” in David Trend (ed.), Reading Digital Culture, P.276
(Comment: These books refer to real cases and everyday experiences, it will be good for foundation understanding of weblog and virtual community)
Websites:
1) Nicholas Packwood, Wilfrid Laurier University, “Geography of the Blogsphere: Representing the Culture, Ecology and Community of Weblogs”, Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. (online). Available: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ (2007, October 19).
2) Meredith Badger, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, “Visual Blogs”, Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. (online). Available: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ (2007, October 19).
3) Graham Lampa, “Imagining the Blogospere: An introduction to the imagined Community of Instant Publishing”, Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. (online). Available: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ (2007, October 19).
4) Cayolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd, “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog” Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. (online). Available: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ (2007, October 19).
5) Laura Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman, University of Minnesota, ” Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. (online). Available: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ (2007, October 19).
(Comment: These websites’ information are very academic and useful, but with difficult ideas)
Links
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weblog/special/0,10627,744914,00.html
http://community.vlogmap.org/
http://www.intentionalaudio.com/blog/
http://www.photoblog.net/
http://leoamosmort.blogspot.com/
http://eriswong.blogspot.com/
Key quotes
1)“I suspect that one of the explanations for this phenomenon is the hunger for community that grows in the breasts of people around the world as more and more informal public spaces disappear from our real lives.” Howard Reingold, “The Virtual Community” in David Trend (ed.), Reading Digital Culture, P.276
2) “Virtual community refers to vastly different computer-mediated communication (CMC) groups.” Anita Blanchard, “Blog as Virtual Communities: Identity a Sence of Community” Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. www.blog.lib.umn.edu/blogoshere/
3)“People in virtual communities do just about everything people do in real life, but we leave our bodies behind.” Howard Reingold, “The Virtual Community” in David Trend (ed.), Reading Digital Culture, P.274
4)“At the core of the blogosphere lies a minority of active and engaged bloggers who post, comment, and link frequently, creating a kernel of conversational community based on personal networks facilitated by blogging tools and associated technologies. However, for the vast majority of users who blog casually, infrequently, and for the benefit of their real-world friends and family.”Graham Lampa, “Imagining the Blogospere: An introduction to the imagined Community of Instant Publishing” Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. www.blog.lib.umn.edu/blogoshere/
5) “The technology of the internet makes it easier than ever for anyone to be either a voyeur or an exhibionist-or both.” Cayolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd, “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog” Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. www.blog.lib.umn.edu/blogoshere/
6) “The blog thus seems to us to be a counter-movement to postmodern destabilization.” Cayolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd, “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog” Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. www.blog.lib.umn.edu/blogoshere/
Key visual materials
The following visual images showed how bloggers use visual materials as writings in blogs to express they views, exhibit their work and report news event, which is a more attractive way to communicate with readers.
Retrieved from: Meredith Badger, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, “Visual Blogs”, Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. (online). Available: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ (2007, October 19).
1) Illustration in weblogs: http//www.americanelf.com
Blogger use illustration to express his everyday life with his friends.
2) An art site in weblog: http://obsessiveconsumption.com/front.html
Blogger posted images of the surroundings in her daily life, visitors may feel like walking with her everyday.
4) Narrative images in weblogs: http://www.kevinsites.net/
Images of events in Iraq, using photos to illustrate a wartime
situation, similar to television news.
Questions
1) What makes people start blogging?
2) What activities do people do in weblogs?
3) What will be the expectation when people read blogs? What purpose they want to achieve?
4) In virtual community, what is the different of experience when compare to the real world?
5) What is the power relationship between the virtual communities and the existing powers like governments? Is there anything that is already out of control? If so, who is going to guide this return to the normal status?
The study of weblog can cover wide areas, such as gender, identity, mass communication, education and virtual community. And weblogs can also be classify into many categories: adult, teen, camgirl, computer, entertainment, humor, movies, music, news, personal, photography, video games, etc. Most blogs are primarily textual but some of them are photoblogs, videoblogs and audioblogs. There are three primary features of weblog: the chronological structure, the frequent updating, and the provided links and commentary. A survey in 2003 found that new blogs increased by 600% between 2000 and 2001 with over four million blogs by the time of survey and 10 million projected by the end of 2004.(1) Millions of people on every continent participate in blogging.
People in blogs use words on screen to communicate, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct commerce, exchange knowledge, share emotional support, brainstorm, find friends, etc. Through the worldwide telecommunication network and personal computers social groups and communities formed in the cyberspace, known as virtual community. It is a social aggregation that emerge from the internet, people involve in public discussion with sufficient human feeling, and form webs of personal relationship in cyberspace. Virtual communities are important because they can replace the relationships lost when people became more isolated from their community. It also allow people to connect with others from around the world with similar interests and benefit from social relationships.
A blogger can call mass attention to a social incident. In China, a professor through his blog called for public attention to abandon the construction of a factory which potentially threatens public health and environment. Alternatively, when weblog became the platform of low cost publishing, mass of amateurish writers enable to publish their work. As traditional print publishing can act as filter to consider the quality of the text, it will be difficult for some great works to call attention from the readers. Weblog do have influence to our life and society, in both positive and negative side. As it happens in a cyberspace with no govern and no control, its development and impacts is unpredictable.
In further study, I would analysis the influence of weblog to individual life, the impacts of virtual communities to the real world in practice and certain kinds of cultural trends evoke by blogging. From the notion of Howard Reingold ‘The phenomenon of virtual communities is due to the disappearing of informal public spaces from our real lives.’ (2) This would be a direction to find out why weblog is so widely adapted. Is there anything that weblog can help us to solve the problems brought by stressful city life and globalization?
Footnotes
1) Carolyn R. Miller and Dawn Sheoherd, “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog”. Available: http:/www.blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/
2) Howard Reingold, “The Virtual Community” in David Trend (ed.), Reading Digital Culture, P.276
Bibliography
Books:
1) Blog!: How the Newest Media Revolution is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture. Authors: David Kline, Dan Burstein, Arne J. De Keijzer, Paul Berber Publisher: New York CDS
2) We’ve got blog: how weblogs are changing our culture. Author: Rodzvilla, John. Publisher: Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 2002.
3) Deeper: my two year odyssey in cyberspace. Author: Seabrook, John. Publisher: New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
4) The cult of the amateur, how today’s Internet is killing our culture. Author: Keen, Andrew. Publisher: New York: Doubleday/ Currency, 2007.
5) Blog: understanding the information reformation that’s changing your world. Author: Hewitt, Hugh. Publisher: Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2005
6) Howard Reingold, “The Virtual Community” in David Trend (ed.), Reading Digital Culture, P.276
(Comment: These books refer to real cases and everyday experiences, it will be good for foundation understanding of weblog and virtual community)
Websites:
1) Nicholas Packwood, Wilfrid Laurier University, “Geography of the Blogsphere: Representing the Culture, Ecology and Community of Weblogs”, Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. (online). Available: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ (2007, October 19).
2) Meredith Badger, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, “Visual Blogs”, Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. (online). Available: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ (2007, October 19).
3) Graham Lampa, “Imagining the Blogospere: An introduction to the imagined Community of Instant Publishing”, Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. (online). Available: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ (2007, October 19).
4) Cayolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd, “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog” Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. (online). Available: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ (2007, October 19).
5) Laura Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman, University of Minnesota, ” Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. (online). Available: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ (2007, October 19).
(Comment: These websites’ information are very academic and useful, but with difficult ideas)
Links
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weblog/special/0,10627,744914,00.html
http://community.vlogmap.org/
http://www.intentionalaudio.com/blog/
http://www.photoblog.net/
http://leoamosmort.blogspot.com/
http://eriswong.blogspot.com/
Key quotes
1)“I suspect that one of the explanations for this phenomenon is the hunger for community that grows in the breasts of people around the world as more and more informal public spaces disappear from our real lives.” Howard Reingold, “The Virtual Community” in David Trend (ed.), Reading Digital Culture, P.276
2) “Virtual community refers to vastly different computer-mediated communication (CMC) groups.” Anita Blanchard, “Blog as Virtual Communities: Identity a Sence of Community” Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. www.blog.lib.umn.edu/blogoshere/
3)“People in virtual communities do just about everything people do in real life, but we leave our bodies behind.” Howard Reingold, “The Virtual Community” in David Trend (ed.), Reading Digital Culture, P.274
4)“At the core of the blogosphere lies a minority of active and engaged bloggers who post, comment, and link frequently, creating a kernel of conversational community based on personal networks facilitated by blogging tools and associated technologies. However, for the vast majority of users who blog casually, infrequently, and for the benefit of their real-world friends and family.”Graham Lampa, “Imagining the Blogospere: An introduction to the imagined Community of Instant Publishing” Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. www.blog.lib.umn.edu/blogoshere/
5) “The technology of the internet makes it easier than ever for anyone to be either a voyeur or an exhibionist-or both.” Cayolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd, “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog” Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. www.blog.lib.umn.edu/blogoshere/
6) “The blog thus seems to us to be a counter-movement to postmodern destabilization.” Cayolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd, “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog” Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. www.blog.lib.umn.edu/blogoshere/
Key visual materials
The following visual images showed how bloggers use visual materials as writings in blogs to express they views, exhibit their work and report news event, which is a more attractive way to communicate with readers.
Retrieved from: Meredith Badger, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, “Visual Blogs”, Into the Blogosphere: Rhrtoric, Community, and Culture of weblogs. (online). Available: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ (2007, October 19).
1) Illustration in weblogs: http//www.americanelf.com
Blogger use illustration to express his everyday life with his friends.
2) An art site in weblog: http://obsessiveconsumption.com/front.html
Blogger posted images of the surroundings in her daily life, visitors may feel like walking with her everyday.
3) Visual directory of blog: http://www.mandarindesign.com/2003 Images of bloggers who were nominated by readers, each square can link back to the bloggers’ sites. The resulting image acted as a visual directory of weblogs.
4) Narrative images in weblogs: http://www.kevinsites.net/
Images of events in Iraq, using photos to illustrate a wartime
situation, similar to television news.
Questions
1) What makes people start blogging?
2) What activities do people do in weblogs?
3) What will be the expectation when people read blogs? What purpose they want to achieve?
4) In virtual community, what is the different of experience when compare to the real world?
5) What is the power relationship between the virtual communities and the existing powers like governments? Is there anything that is already out of control? If so, who is going to guide this return to the normal status?
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