Six of my college friends and I started a blog called “Hey, what time is it there?” to share the lives after graduation in July, because we are now in different cities: Taipei, Pittsburg, New York, Seattle, and Bloomington. Our blog focuses more on current events, cultural observations, and life experiences because of our same background as journalism undergraduates. We are imitating my cousin’s idea to start this kind of co-authored blogs. My cousin and his college classmates have a blog on Internet, 3C, information, technology…etc. I agree that Bloggers want to find similar people with similar interests. These co-author blogs has the microscope idea of homogeneity. The co-author blogs could be one laboratory to experience how blogging works.
In the readings of digital queer article this week, it says the interactivity of blogs became an essential part of blog rhetoric and a central aspect of blog ideology. Blogging indeed is a radical, easy and grass root way to share, having the essence in it self of to be read, known, and commented by everyone having access to Internet. The possible interactivity breaks the hierarchy, opening a leeway to talk to potential readers and friends.
Talking of community, the reading gives also an interesting point: the connection between rhetoric and an ideology is a close one because early Bloggers saw themselves as part of a relatively cohesive community, with shared values about the meaning of the Internet and the importance of the community they are building. As a blogger of a co-author blog, I surely see the shared values and collective memories in the discourses of blogging. I agree to feel a sense of community in this kind of writing.
As an old saying goes, “Birds of a feather flock together.” In the reading, it reads, as a genre, blogs create a specific type of social space and are constructed to attract specific types of community based on similarity rather than difference. It seemed hard for people to go online to write about things that totally different from their offline lives. It is also hard for people to join a community online that doesn’t have any connections to their offline identity. As people like to read news with affinity, they blog the same way, enhancing their belief and opinions and seeking sympathetic comments rather than attacks.
In the readings of digital queer article this week, it says the interactivity of blogs became an essential part of blog rhetoric and a central aspect of blog ideology. Blogging indeed is a radical, easy and grass root way to share, having the essence in it self of to be read, known, and commented by everyone having access to Internet. The possible interactivity breaks the hierarchy, opening a leeway to talk to potential readers and friends.
Talking of community, the reading gives also an interesting point: the connection between rhetoric and an ideology is a close one because early Bloggers saw themselves as part of a relatively cohesive community, with shared values about the meaning of the Internet and the importance of the community they are building. As a blogger of a co-author blog, I surely see the shared values and collective memories in the discourses of blogging. I agree to feel a sense of community in this kind of writing.
As an old saying goes, “Birds of a feather flock together.” In the reading, it reads, as a genre, blogs create a specific type of social space and are constructed to attract specific types of community based on similarity rather than difference. It seemed hard for people to go online to write about things that totally different from their offline lives. It is also hard for people to join a community online that doesn’t have any connections to their offline identity. As people like to read news with affinity, they blog the same way, enhancing their belief and opinions and seeking sympathetic comments rather than attacks.
3 則留言:
Your point about "affinity" is really interesting to read about. So if I've understood you right, even though the Web is a giant ocean of information, we're committed to swimming in little paddle pools of knowledge that links directly or indirectly to what we already know and experience. In your co-blogging experiment, did you ever feel like it brought together diverse perspectives onto the same page, or were most people's interests and inclinations tending towards homogeneity?
Heya Ting...it's nice to hear your perspective as an active blogger. I agree with you that a certain amount of homogeneity is necessary for bloggers to attract readers like themselves. However, I feel like Rak's analysis of current queer blogs is dated and doesn't acknowledge certain gray areas of blogging such as ones with commercial intent. I believe that an analysis of 2007 blogs would yield a more rich and diverse sampling of language and ideas.
btw...what are you blogs' addresses?
As much as I would love to think blogs are spaces intended to help us communicate and stay connected in the "can't we all just get along" spirit of love and peace etc. thinking, I find I just can't fully agree. There are lots of identities banging into each other out there especially right now - it's election season for example. The disagreements are flying! The questions are flailing around (did you see the latest YouTube CNN debate? Certainly the homogeneity you speak of exists in the political blogs but these blogs also attract the detractors. We all need to think about it how completely necessary is this! This country is in total crisis and we are all using the blogs to talk about it! The politicians want to know what we think and this is the way our truth as citizens gets out. We all don't agree and frankly we need our diversity of opinions more desperately than ever now. Blogs offer a huge idea of community - that of being an american citizen.
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