Blogtrax

I started taking pictures of padlocks. As a matter of fact I copied the idea from someone else. Here’s a short exchange on my photostream

lizjones112 Pro User says:
Nice shot, I’m glad I’m not the only one who takes pictures of padlocks!

on-the-run Pro User says:
Actually it’s contagious. I thought your’s were so good that I suddenly found myself copying!!

lizjones112 Pro User says:
Thank you, glad to know I can inspire others to take interesting pictures

I wrote about this on my own blog, referring to visual memes, but all the time I was thinking about copying and the whole ambiguity of that culturally located concept of copying. I guess we are first socialised into the complexities and nuances of copying in school. We learn for example that:

- close imitation is good in certain contexts (such as letter formation, lining up, singing, turning somersaults, using technical vocabulary)

- imitation is bad, when we make fun of how people walk, speak and so on…that is as long as they are not legitimate targets (and of course what constitutes a legitimate target varies from situation to situation)

- imitation is good in creative tasks, particularly in the broad sweep of things such as kinds of representation, writing genres and so on

- imitation is bad in creative tasks when it shows a lack of originality and when it is a straightforward (literal) copy

In a nutshell, we learn by copying and we learn not to copy. Our academic life is shot through with similar notions about copying. Plagiarism is bad, summarising someone else’s ideas and acknowledging them is good. Doing a similar thing to someone else locates you in a particular discipline or field. Doing exactly the same thing is unoriginal etc etc. Underlying all this there seem to be some cultural constructs about individuality, originality, authority and authorship that are related to the way that knowledge and learning are conceived of and policed in the dominant Western paradigm. These are all concepts that new media and new technologies challenge. Yet, we still prize the originality of our blogs even if we riff off the posts of others; we celebrate the uniqueness of the images in our photostream even when we are inspired by others. Cut/paste, capture/remix, and rip/burn technologies suggest how we can make new knowledge or art out of the work of others. Originality and creativity is perhaps re-defined in terms of the juxtapositions we make, the new links we establish. What we do then is less like orchestrating new comments more like deejaying, seguing one idea track into another whilst still keeping our audience on the dance floor. Maybe copies our OK (after all they serve DJs well), we are distinctive in the versions we have and the combinations and sequences we make and, of course, the spaces in which we produce them. After all that’s where we perform our identity and develop our reputation.

I like the whole idea of voice and have a feeling that this could be a distinctive feature of the written aspect of blogging. I say voice, but I really mean voices - in a sort of Bakhtinian way. I don’t have any strong theoretical reference points for the concept of voice, and I’m even uncertain how that really differs from style, but it seems to make sense that to the extent that blogs are keeping going the narrative of the self they almost inevitably have those linguistic traces that constitute voice.

What made me think this was reading a comment from Dr Joolz on my blog which went

Your blog is very newsy lately. You are so good at keeping uptodate and I am trying to copy.

And that sounded a bit like Julia, but also a bit like Julia pretending to be Kate. Now pinning that down is difficult and could also be WRONG, but I do get a real sense of voice in the comment. It’s also interesting that because of the power relations in blogging (you are, when you leave a comment, simply adding to what the owner of the blog has said, creating a sort of footnote, after all) most people tend to move towards a more informal speech-like register - moving in the direction of chat. Pehaps in chat, or at least in the way we write when we want to sound chatty, we get a bit closer to the distinctiveness of voice. It would be interesting just to focus on the linguistic features of people’s comments….

OAAghh, I keep on saying

I use the terms ‘anchored’ and ‘transient identity’ to distinguish between positions which are profoundly influenced by a long history of socio-cultural practices (such as gender or religion) and those which are more easily made, re-made and un-made (such as affinity groups or fandom). These are not simple binary divisions, but poles on a continuum. We suggest that interactions, contexts and events are likely to make certain aspects of identity more or less salient at any given time and in any particular social interaction. Examples of anchored identities are: gender, position in family, religion, age, social class and geographical location. They relate to aspects of children’s lives over which they have little control and are least likely to change. On the other hand, transient identities change over time, being influenced by maturation, changing cultural conditions and peer group affiliations. These identities are defined in relation to media narratives, popular music, sport, commercial toys, video games, and iconic objects.

But after a few outings and plenty of discussion there’s some things to qualify, change and adapt. First these are not binaries…in fact, it’s often the case that anchored identities are traced through transient identities (eg: gendered artefacts; iconic figures who are salient for particular social groups). So a particular expression of fandom is played out against the backcloth of wider social forces. In a sense, and at least for a time these identities are braided together. But the distinction remains important simply because we exercise choice over our transient identities. We can choose or refuse to choose an identity as a football supporter of a particular team. In fact football works quite well as an example. Personal histories, the geography of residence, and sometimes social class -although admittedly less so nowadays - and maybe gender as well, influence the expression of our allegiance to a particular club. In some regions there is a religious texture in there, too (Rangers and Celtic in Glasgow, for example), but although we may profess to support ’till death’, a change of fortunes can quickly lead to changes in our sense of ourself as a supporter.

It’s a very different picture with anchored identities. Changing or concealing the biological or factual indices of who we are is far more challenging. It is overtly transgressive, often having deep-rooted consequences - and even raises legal issues. But, of course, some choice still operates; and that is the choice of how much we emphasise or perform that particular identity. And this, in turn, is relevant to our sense of ourselves, our self-presentation, and our acts of impression formation in an era in which actively creating the story of ourselves has come to the fore. Perhaps we need a deeper understanding of the nuances of identity performance in the shifting social networks of our lives and a more sophisticated appreciation of how we orientate ourselves to artefacts and narratives in this process. We perform, after all, to an audience and in a particular context. And so the particular figured world is a significant influence as we draw on a repertoire of behaviours and semiotic devices to communicate this sense of self.

I’m fascinated by the fluidity of the blogosphere. As texts blogs often appear to be unbounded - they change their look, their relationships, their links, paying little respect to any notions of fixity. Over a relatively short period of time we have re-skinned our blogs - Dr Joolz has changed provider - and we have changed the tools, processes and styles in which we blog. This fluid world is also characterised by frequent changes in reference points as the blogosphere reshapes itself. Our audience re-groups, we change our relationships to each other and we re-calibrate our frequency of commenting. Topics refresh and morph into new areas and some of our frequently-posting friends have for one reason or another become occasionals (Mary Plain and Simply Clare are cases in point). New bloggers have appeared and disappeared, and new kinds of possibilities have emerged. Some, like Kate, experiment with new forms… Professionally, apart from this shared metablog, we are both involved in Lets Get Digital and Critical Literacies - group blogs which aim to provide a forum for research and academic ideas - both difficult to promote and sustain. Is it, perhaps, that the real social affordance of the blog is about a performance of identity something that is harder for a group to achieve? Looking at the social architecture of blogging as opposed to photosharing, im or message boards one gets the sense of the personalised page - my space (isn’t the popular MySpace appropriately named, from this perspective?), an online shopwindow, a showcase, decorated like mine with my books, my CDs, my pics and so on. And I do, from time to time expend a little energy in arranging this window…yes, it’s interactive, yes, it is intertextual, hyperlinked and so on, but the starting point is me. The social architecture of other online spaces is rather different, and for me less personal. Commenting on someone else’s blog though is much the same experience as dropping a comment on a Runboard discussion group, or chatting on someone else’s photostream.

Recently, because of a project I’m involved in, I’ve been interacting with people in a virtual world. In a sense this feels much more like neutral territory - the social architecture is different, the interaction is far more conversational. Apart from the world itself, which gives the impression of fixity, the communication is far more ephemeral. Once I’m used to the subtleties of turn-taking (and waiting) in synchronous chat there’s an interesting freeflow of chat. Last night I met Andrew, who I know on RL and we talked about approaches to narrative writing in a virtual park - he was a spider, I was a dalek. I’ve also spoken to Susan in Michigan (who’s she in RL?) about building terraced houses, Zola and Rich in Finland (seen his pic on a website). Next time I visit that world is back to normal. I haven’t left a trace of myself there. My text has evaporated, my words erased. So this suggests a continuum - yes the blog rolls over (but it’s still archived); yes the blog topics change (but the old ones are still there). There is a leading edge to a blog. It’s right there where you just left it. It has a life beyond your posting, as does Flickr or a Runboard discussion and the archived memory is a key feature. Chat in whatever format is very different in texture.