Blogtrax

Anya contacted me by e mail to talk about the nervousness post I wrote earlier today.
She and I have both mentioned in articles about backstage chat, about advising others in a space away from the public gaze but still online.
It is like meeting down the pub and talking after work; still colleagues but with understandings that are more friendly than that.
I am beginning to feel I know Anya pretty well; certainly better than some of my meatspace colleagues. (And yet I will not feel I really know her till I see her, I don’t think.)
Whilst there is the tension between public/private within the confines of the blog, there is not the feeling of public on an e mail.

I just found this.I think it is interesting .
One of the most obvious defining features of blogs is the way they are structured around chronological time.
But as a reader, I really have never felt confined in anyway by date;some blogs have topics down the side so you can read them like an index to posts. I assumed loads of people do that.
But the great thing about this blog is the way you can untangle that and read in topic order.
And as I have said earlier this will really help our research.
And as Mortensson and Walker’s paper points out, Barthes did a piece that was organised alphabetically.

Blogs escape the tyranny of certain structures but readers certainly seem to bring their own restrictions

I have just flipped through the open windows on my laptop and come to this helpful piece:

Blogs exist right on this border between what’s private and what’s
public, and often we see that they disappear deep into the private
sphere and reveal far too much information about the writer. When a
blog is good, it contains a tension between the two spheres, as delicate
a balancing act as the conversation of any experienced guest of
the French salons of the 19th century.

from page 8 in here.
(This links to the piece I posted a few minutes ago - look on the post below.)
It takes on the notion of the public private tension being more nuanced on a blog and mentions the comparison with face to face interaction.
And this here is so helpful too:

In some manner, the
writer is putting his or her daily experiences into a larger context, discussing
micro events in relation to the wider universe of events. The
weblog connects the public arena with that of individuals.

(Page 10)

This notion, that Turkle also writes about, in relation to online gaming of ‘writing oneself’, is highy pertinent I think. Here is Turkle on the topic:

‘as they participate they become authors not only of text but of themselves, constructing new selves through social interaction’, (1995:10)

Gorgeous.
I have used this in relation to online teen interation - on their message boards and their home pages etc.

(Caution, this post may offend)
For the first time I have started to feel nervous about putting posts up that may offend … that I may write something which is unacceptable .
This is a sign of my naivete. The private/public tension is an important dimension of the online world, I have always known that and I thought that I understood it was both these things. But I have had my epiphonous moment a bit late. Guy blogged ages ago that he was shocked when he found out Colin and Michele had read his blog; I have had a little bit of a shock wave go through me and I realise that nuances of what I write can carry across the web with different effects to what I imagined or intended.
Again I have always known that what ever anyone writes, if they put it in the public domain anyone else can do with it what they want, interpret it how they want and so on. They may read into what you have written something that you did not know was there or that you had not realised was there. Once your text is in the public domain, it is no longer just yours. And I guess I have experienced this properly now… and I feel really strange that I have offended someone - especially as in meat space I tend to inconvenience myself not to do so. I think this whole area is more nuanced on the web as most online publishing is instant - not edited or reviewed by others. (Especially blogs of course which are by nature more subjective, reflective, personal etc.)

Maybe in meat space we (I?) am more able to avoid culture clash miscues as I can see who I am interacting with and will adjust what I say, how I say, etc.This is much less easily done online and indeed if we try to avoid offending all possible readers, then what we say may become impossibly bland and non commmittal to the point of not being able to express one’s view. So,maybe online communities, which I have observed to develop mini cultures, need to do so in order to define parameters that are over and above ‘other’ culture affiliations…
So how therefore did I offend someone online? Maybe because the person I offended was not really in my affinity space at all and maybe because global nettiquette is still developing … hmm perhaps I need to think about the notion of micro cultures in relation to affinity spaces.

Many of the photographs on Flickr are images of the photographers themselves and of the photographers’ families and friends.
These are often accompanied by comments which give further details of family lives, friendships and collegial relationships.
The co-existance of the private/public space so often associated with online groups,is illustrated really clearly on the Flickr site and some of the shots I have seen are really intimate or of really important family moments - weddings, births even.
Meta photography is very popular and some people put deliberately provocative photos of themselves online. TT has a lovely post on this topic here.
It is as if in some spaces on theInternet there is a very strong sense of affinity, of trust and of defiance of all the stranger danger and discourses around the abuse of digital affordances by pornographers.
I had noticed when I was looking at Wiccan teens that in say 2002 - 2003 there were a great number of teens putting photos of themselves on thier webpages. Yet now this has massively decreased, presumably because of increased awareness of the danger discourses I referred to above.
I don’t know why, therefore there is this diffrence on the Flickr site. Maybe the ‘danger’ factor has fallen into obeyance since the stronger discourses are abbout the value of the photograph and the value of the affinity space itself. Maybe because of the ubiquity of digital cameras, digital photos etc that people feel less threatened by what can happen. The Flickr community maybe values the digital image so highly they cannot see the fear factor anymore?
People seem to want to offer a visual narrative of parts of theirlives, seeing themselves online, presenting a particular identity, and telling people in their comments, how to read the pictures.
Is there too much trust on this site?

OK the info for this post actually is lifted straight from the comments from this morning’s post. But it is all so interesting I want it out on the front level (so to speak) with a chance for me to reflect on it a bit..
There has been a bit of a row Anya told me and Torill gave me the headsup here
Apparently people have been saying that to have a blog roll means that it delimits the blogs that are read; it prioritises the work of a smaller community and means that people are not so experimental in their reading. This narrows the blogosphere and makes a few people more powerful. Others have argued that blogrolls are useful as references for they allow you to explore avenues of like minded individuals and in fact spread the word rather than limit. You can trace bits of the debate here.

And of course, ironically some of these sites have excellent blogrolls.

However I don’t want to think about this within that kind of parameter; I have written elsewhere about the way links work to define communities; to lend coherence; to foster a sense of belonging and to show where more can be learned. I have also thought a lot about how such links (and other things) support the accumulation of social capital and that sites are often structured to do so. I think it is probably always going to be the case that somehow all activity online will be situated within some kind of power construct .. (am I becoming a Marxist after all?)
Funnily enough, witnessing this grown up row amongst veteran bloggers (after all I am only a newbie) made me feel like I was standing outside the kitchen door while Mum and Dad were arguing on the other side. There is a whole old social history behind all that lot and I have not been part of it. They all knew each other while I was scratching out my name on parchment. Bitch PhD referrred to big bloggers (!) at one point which I think rightly recognises the status (right word?) pervasiveness (?) of some blogs in the academic community of which hers is no doubt one. (Hey, but who exactly is she? Does ANYONE know?)

Anyway it is all fascinating and I am grateful to Anya and Torill for letting me in on all this.

And hey Guy!! If you ever read this … the great Torill Mortensen left a comment on our blog. We are on the map my chicken!!

I discussed Bourdieu’s Forms of Capital with Jackie and Anne-Marie.
I am thinking about a model for online learning communities which takes appropriate bits from Communities of Practice and Affinity Spaces but which also includes the dimension of power dynamics.
Bourdieu talks about social alliances like this: ‘Each member of the group is thus instituted as a custodian of the limits of the group: because the definition of the criteria of entry is at stake in each new entry, he can modify the group by modifying the limits of legitimate exchange through some form of misalliance.’ which is highly resonant of Flickr groups, in the way people set up new themes but these then develop and there is some kind of negotiation going on through the comments system, which reflect what things are valued and what are not. I believe that certain discourses become highly valued on Flickr; for examle the discourses of gratitude, of appreciation etc. People praise each other’s work, their houses, their babies, their belongings even. On Star not Star this is exemplified very well here, where the photographer tells so much of her life in describing the ciircumstances by which she took the photo. She reveals lots about her family life, her lack of expertise, here gratitude for praise and also for receiving useful critique to help her understand something about her photo she had taken. The way she received the comments from others seemed to facilitate more teeming in. I have seen this elsewhere on the site. This is all about being a member of the group who can use the right discourses. This does not have to be calculated at all, I am not suggesting that . I am saying that some discourses are very powerful and that people who are popular in the groups are able to interact in these ways.

Another interesting group is Pirates. TT set up a Pirates group where he intended to invite pictures not of literal pirates but of transgressive people in urban settings- a kind of intellectual pirate, a pirate who challenges social norms. The group is now filled with loads of pictures of real pirates; TT was not actually in control of what pictures went on. The power is illusory sometimes. This does not mean that social capital has not been acquired where it is apparent, for I think in these spaces where the right discourses are used, (discourses of gratitude of admiration, etc) powere is sustained. I.e. power is embedded in the discourses and the modes of the space. So ther is power also in images and people’s critique of what makes a good picture helps to shape what is valued in the shared images!!

Anyway there is lots there; I want to describe the way Flickr uses the space of the web to help me make a stab at describing an online community which draws on the notion of affinities, of learning, of valuing different types of knowledge, etc etc but which also acknowledges those elements of power which are undermined by other models. Gee talks about leadership in affinity spaces being ‘porous’; I certainly feel that there is more opportunity for leadership in online groups, (and that is probably part of the attraction - to feel empowered in a safe (ish) space) ; but I also think groups are subject to hierarchies. We cannot forget for example, that it is Yahoo that supports a system of ‘favourites’ which help confer status. Or that the system of picking people as contacts is seen as acquisitive in some way; the discourses of mutuality are perhaps a little bit misleading over in the Flickr camp.
If I can try to draw up a model for Flickr I can then think about testing it in other groups.

I am feeling quite excited about all this. Multi modal forms of capital, yeah.

The move to this site has been a learning process about technology. Without doing this learning it would not have been woryth the move. Technology is impacting on the way we do our research but we have to learn new things as well. This is a learning about technology through the desire to acquire particular textual affordances.
Learning by doing.
But there is also something here about the relationship between technology and behaviour.

Have spent quite a while today moving all the posts over from Blogtrax (one) to its new home here. Hopefully this will help Guy and I in the long run when we use it as a database to help us write.
The next big task, (and the whole thing will have been pointless without this next step) is to categorise all the posts.
This in itself is of course an analytical process.
I have done about half with twenty more to go. It is all rather a lot of work and quite scarey as Guy might choose different catgories to me.

Hmm. Anya, how did you stay sane doing this?

And today I notice, you have a wonderful post on wearable technology.

I am still not sure about Communities of Practice and I am not sure Affinity Spaces are the answer. The thing is that many of us have used the Communities of Practice model to understand online communities but there is a real probem with notions of membership and boundaries etc which are really not an accurate descriptin of the dynamics which seem at once intensive and dynamic. Temporary coherences. Affinity spaces, first talked about by Gee I think, (and building on his idea of the semiotic domain) evolved as a term around online gaming, but again I m am not sure it is properly transferrable as a model for non gaming online groups, although I, like Michelle Knobel, have also used this term.
In this book, Massey talks about ‘constellatons of temporary coherences’ in regard to groups of youth meeting - but is not talking about cyberspace, but I think it could be applied to online groups and want to think more on this.

In Flickr people belong to lots of different groups; the whole site does not really constitute a coherent community it is a series of groups.
Individuals in the groups interact with each other and some belong to numbers of groups where they meet again.
They have in jokes, interests and conversations which are thematically dropped and picked up again.
Individuals carry across specific identities and social histories. These are shown multimodally in words and images and in the associations they trace across the groups.
Individuals seem to develop online identities and coherences.
they teach each other.

Some groups are VERY popular and there are some definite stars on the board;movers and shakers who influence.

There are some individuals who start groups which no one joins.
I have seen one big argument and this I think is an unusual occurence although I have spotted this too.

Finally there is this fab new thing I have been invited to join. The Flat Stanley Project is a very exciting idea in my opinion and there is also a blog to go with it.
So it is an example of online learning collaboration across generations. I think itis antastic the way adults are invited to help in the education of children in this way..