Blogtrax

Here’s another identity quote I like.

‘We manufacture stories, after all, from the fleeting sensory material that bombards us at every instant, a fragmented series of pictures, conversations, odors, and the touch of things and people. We delete most of it to live with some semblance of order, and the reshuffling of memory goes on until we die.’ Hustvedt, 2003: 120

I’ve just finished reading Siri Hustvedt’s novel ‘The Blindlfold’. Not surprisingly it’s all about identity and identity shifts, dislocation etc etc. But there’s one part that really stands out for me. The main character has just assumed an identity which involves adopting another name - a fictionalised identity. One of this character’s confidantes claims that ‘Fiction is not like life.’ - fair enough - but the response is brilliant, I’m sure I’ll use it as a quote sometime:

You know as well as I do that the line can’t be drawn, that we’re infected at every moment by fictions of all kinds, that it’s inescapable.

So I’m now pre-occupied by that phrase ‘ infected at every moment by fictions’. Of course the suggestion of disease or infection seems to carry a value judgement, but the nonetheless it also makes us see how the fictions we consume and the fictions we live by influence our self-narrative. Perhaps also the most severe forms of political oppression are achieved by innoculating the populace with dangerous fictions.

‘The existential question of self identity is bound up with the fragile nature of the biography which the individual ’supplies’ about herself.A person’s identity is not to be found in behaviour, nor - important though this is - in the reactions of others, but in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going. The individual’s biography, if she is to maintain regular interaction with others in the day-to-day world, cannot be wholly fictive. It must continually integrate events which occur in the external world, and sort them into the ongoing ’story’ about the self.’ (Giddens 1991: 54).

Yes that’s what I do; in my blog this is what I do. I have an ongoing story. But I think we have several ongoing stories. I also think that if we bear in mind a particular audience, we change our story to suit them and ths change our notion of who we are according to our audience.

So as Guy says, I use lots of pictures at the moment. What am I saying? I think I am saying I believe the visual is really imortant. But more than that, I am building up layers of semiotics because I want all these to be taken into consideration alongside the words I write. I think I am trying to bring my ‘hinterland’ to the fore. It is showing off in mnay ways.

*Gauntlett,D. (2002) in Media Gender and Identity Routledge page 99

Sarah had a link to this blog, which is one of a type - a travel blog. Profgirrl also described her japan visit recently and also blogged whileshe was away, giving us news. Anya also kept in touch when she was at a conference, as did Guy.

The bloggers give us a sense of their new experiences in relation to the space they are in, even though in fact they report to us from within the same cyberspace. As far as we are concerned, they could be anywhere - they are not in our space at any rate. yet we still get a sense of their changed location through their blogs. So much blogging is like journalism and this is one of those similarities - people bringing news from all over the world.

Sarah also linked to this blog which gives a really interesting description of how educators could use Flickr.

But check out THIS as well - a piece of software using communities of practice theory to generate learning on the web.Moodle calls itself a ‘learning management system’ and could be a money making thing that I don’t much like. Band and Wagon come to mind..
I likethe Flickr idea alongwith mobile phones and tagging though. Would suit adult learners in particular I think. I also liked this educational project, (using Flat Stanley ) which I saw sometime ago and wrote about on DrJoolz .

I have just discovered that you can do a search, using Google, to find posts on Blogger blogs. I suppose everyone else knew this AGES ago, but I have only just found out. Look here.

By typing ‘Flickr’ in the Google box when on DrJooz, it threw me all the posts where I mention Flickr. Cool.

Finally while we are on the topic of Flickr, thanks to Anya for telling about the ComicLife tags on Flickr and giving us another educational use of Flickr. Another example of people learning together about visuals, multi modalities and this time also, narrative.Fantastic stuff. Am going to HAVE to get the software from Apple. See these other examples.

1.Originally, I started keeping a blog to see what it would be like to write something that would appear online. Having written about others and their online interactions, I wanted to know if I was right in some of my assumptions. I admired what I was looking at and wanted to do it too.
2. I find writing helps me to think through some of my ideas and I like the discipline of writing regualarly - however busy my day is with other things… I try to force myself to write daily.
3. I like the hybrid nature of the writing - it is part work and part play. As Anya said, something about boundary shifting. I think it is true that the boundaries of work/play merge for most academics and their inability to to distinguish is reflected in the blogs of many academics I think. Thanks to Anya for this insight.
4. I like the public/private tension of the space.
5. Writing helps me develop my ideas and I write them in my blog in a semi formed state; not ready for peer review as such, but open for peer commentary.
5. I like being part of an affinity space. This space is slightly uncertain as it is transitory to a degree and I am not quite sure where its boundaries are.
6. I like taking things from my meatspace experiences and rearranging them in cyberspace to look at as new text, s a narrative of sorts. These reconstructions come in the the form of digital images I take with my camera; words on the web-page that narrate aspects of my life; hyperlinks to show places I have been, things I have read, etc.
7. I like being part of digital culture network; I like the interaction.
8. I like producing texts that have hyperlinks and that have a range of modalities; it seems important as a cultural develoment and I want to be part of it.
9. I think this is a new form of writing and I want to research it.
10. I can communicate with people I know and people I do not know; I like not quite being sure who is reading.

Apologies that this post repeats a lot of what has gone before … but that is the nature of developing ideas and learning… it is circuitous.

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?

I have done a lot of different types of post over the last few months.
There have been some which have related very specifically to literacy and an exploration of what a text is.
I have reflected on ideas I have read about or heard about, which have been totally academic related. I have reported on conferences and seminars.
I have written lists of books I want to read - thus showing my orientation towards particular topics and making a decision about what kind of identity I want to present for DrJoolz.
Sometimes I have been reflective about my posts.

So I have worked hard to show myself as academic it seems; but in doing so I have been thinking academically, reflecting on my workand trying to get others to talk with me about the content of my posts. (And academics have often responded.)

I have also used my blog to plot political views during the general election; to put across academic and political views about what is on television; I have even taken the risk and made comments about the wedding of Prince Charles and Chinchilla and made less than respectful noises about the pope. I have therefore used my blog as SOCIAL and POLITICAL COMMENTARY.

I have told stories about me in pictures and in words. I have even told the world my feelings in a very uncharacteristic act of openess. This was a very strange thing to do. I have given lists which reflect my interests, my preferences. I have shown things about my family relationships and those with friends and colleagues. This posts were personal narratives. Showing myself in what I do and in in my depiction of relationships.

More on types of posts next time …

It is a long time since Guy last posted here and even longer since I have done anything on this blog.
At first I felt guilty about not keeping this going but then realised that a lot of what I was doing over on DrJoolz involved quite a bit of thinking about the proces of blogging.
This is a catch up post but also I will from now on try to post something here every few days so that I know things are fresh in my mind.

I have been thinking about how in some ways I have develped a DrJoolz persona who is a little bit different from my identity as a researcher at work, as a colleague, as someone at home with family relationships. Maybe on the blog I present myself as having some kind of coherence; some sort of joined upness. In writing about myself I am somehow writing myself.I am subject and object of the work; and interestingly because I am writing about blogging I sometimes do stuff soI can blog it.In this way the blog influences my life; it does not simply record aspects of it.
For example on the walk round Sheffield, I only went on that walk to get photos for my blog. Photos like this one.

In taking this walk, I looked at an area of where I live that I had never been to before - even though it is really near it was not part of my daily map.

I have found that using images has made me look around me for visual jokes, for quirky things; even wondering what might be interesting to someone who does not live in England. This is me thinking about audience as well as taking an interest in looking about me in a new way.

When I called this photo ‘Addiction’ I thought it was funny but also quite poignant.

So I think that blogging has made me do things I would not have done before and it makes me look about the world in new ways.