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.

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?