Blogtrax

Writing about the Theatre of the Oppressed and the fictional account of the Pandorama in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (here) calls to mind the power of representation in mediating and reflecting upon identity. It seems to me that representing oneself, telling one’s own story, creates the conditions for reflexivity. This is the sort of project we began here, on Blogtrax, part of which is now published in our study of academic blogging. Now of course, the two examples I begun with are products of an emancipatory discourse, being strategies for breaking the silence of oppressive conditions. Blogging as such, is too general, too diffuse a medium for that, but nevertheless one can still find good examples of blogs that provide that sort of counter-narrative, and to some extent some of the much-hyped ‘citizen journalism’ performs that function - but in a more general sense what I’m moving to is a sense of the power of digital literacy and a particular role that blogs can perform.

Not that we would want to confer blogs with some sort of universal power to create reflexive awareness of identity any more than we would subscribe to those ideologies about the power of literacy to transform cognitive processes. But still it strikes me that once we begin to make conscious decisions about representing ourselves, and once we begin to reflect on that process - particularly in dialogue with others - in terms of what is allowed, what is included and what is bracketed, we can develop clearer insights into the whole process of identity performance. And because blogs tend to the personal (my online home; the cubby hole; wunderkammer or whatever), identity performance through topic choice, hyperlinking and blogroll allegiances becomes more salient and more open to scrutiny.

It’s very interesting to try to trace changing perceptions of the blogging phenomenon. Although some commentators are suggesting that interest in blogging is beginning to dwindle (or reach a steady state) and that most blogs have a relatively brief shelf-life, they have at the same time begun to attract more attention. Traditional media sources regularly comment on blogging - often snarling at any suggestion of citizen journalism - and stories about blogging incidents are certainly newsworthy. Most recently the threatening comments story attracted interest and the proposed ‘code of conduct’ provoked hot debate. But this was frequently turned on us, the blogging community, who were perceived as self-interested, narcissistic or simply irrelevant. I actually felt quite insulted by the ‘why would anybody want to blog’ tack taken by some traditional journalists. Why would anybody write? Why would anybody want to express themselves? Why would anyone want to experiment with new tools of communication? Why shouldn’t people remain passive and silent… need I say more? The so what argument is very irritating- and I don’t think that’s just a defensive reaction.

However, when blogger friends slow up in their posting and presumably in their enthusiasm, I suppose you do stop and think. But then I’m aware of how they only represent a small segment of the writing/reading blog culture, and so the blogging goes on. Interestingly, I was at a meeting of academics last month, when someone suggested that a new initiative required a blog. The ‘groan’ reaction was interesting - but I wasn’t quite clear whether it was a groan of reluctance (we’ve been here before), a groan of overload (not more reading/writing), or a groan that suggested that somehow the blogging format was now passe.

In an interesting contrast to this, as I begin to introduce blogging to students, there is more interest. It’s as if something exotic has now been tamed. And of course it has been in VLEs. Here blogging is behind bars. But I’m quite positive about that, because I’ve noticed that as students and teachers become more habituated to the blog (and wiki) tools - we use them in the Blackboard environment - they begin to understand the purposes and principles a bit better. And, at the same time, they begin to understand the limitations in terms of audience and functionality. I’m still quite content to blog away! Sometimes I have more to say than others; sometimes my postings are lightweight, sometimes they atempt to record ideas or trends that are significant (at least to me). A lot of the time, now it feels more like building up an archive and Blogger’s introduction of tags certainly helps to create this sort of mindset.

I still feel proud of my blog and rarely look back at postings and think ‘I wish I hadn’t said that’ - I don’t tend to edit posts after publishing except to mend a broken link or when there’ s a mistake that makes things unclear. The most personal side of my blog is my use of images. I’m not a photographer, but I like to have a visual element. What I really enjoy is the juxtaposition. Sometimes my Flickr image will have absolutely nothing to do with the written text, other times it will have a meaning to me (and maybe one or two others) - and at other times it will pun or simply illustrate the post.

Well it’s a good while since I blogged here, and given the avowed intention of keeping Blogtrax alive as a log of an ungoing autoethnography it does seem to be limping along and that’s largely a matter of time - having the time to keep up a reflective blog whilst posting on my personal blog, shared blogs, student blogs and, of course, reading favourites and new ones gobbles up the time. Put that together with life (and explorations of new social networking sites) it all adds up to a convincing excuse.

My personal blog is now 3 years old - that seems significant in itself - and I’ve been wanting to reflect on that for a week or so. In 3 years I have just over 500 posts - that works out at roughly one every other day on average, but given that I was away 3 months and often stop when I’m abroad, my ‘normal’ frequency is higher than that. OK so that’s a bit boring, but one thing that it shows is that its a pretty regular part of what I do - part of my life. Mostly, I just like doing it and enjoy the exercise of thinking about something that’s interesting and then writing it up. I like watching it grow as an unbounded, cumulative text.

It’s hard to tell how my posts change over time, but it seems they’re nearly all to do with technology, writing and teaching and how these things intersect with my personal and professional life. I think I tend to add in local colour about what I’m up to, what my family’s doing and then add the occasional comment about current affairs - but these provide background detail. I use my sidebar to show reading and music, but my comments on these are minimal. My sidebar is a mess, but it’s one of the most useful bits for me. Since my blog is set as my homepage, it’s got some of the most important links for me.

I’m interested in how I use my blog for different purposes. A common one is when people email about research stuff (eg I read so and so, is there any more?). It’s dead easy just to say, check the links on my blog…but also when friends or students hear about Ruth’s singing - I can’t remember any details, but I can say ‘Look for Ruth on the sidebar.’ I’m sure there’s much more like this but these examples really blow a whole in that idea that a blog is an online journal. I mean who’s journal has that kind of functionality?

Most of the time I love my blog. I like its distinctive, quirky look and I like it when people unexpectedly stumble on it. It’s good the way people pick up on different things ‘Oh I saw my picture!’ or ‘I liked the bit you wrote about’, ‘I don’t get it’ or ‘I liked that picture of the steam engine.’ - whatever. Sometimes I’ve got too much to say and these days I just try to keep it to a paragraph; sometimes what I’ve got is a collection of completely unrelated things; sometimes I can’t think of anything to write. Sometimes I hate my blog. I hate it most when I don’t feel I have anything to say, when I’m tired but still in the trall of that blog addiction.

But when I look back at my posts (with the possible exception of the very early ones which I thought were secret) I feel good about them. If there’s humour I don’t really care if no-one else laughs. If there’s insight, I don’t care if there are no comments. Sometimes I get the feeling that some readers might find what I’ve written pretentious but I don’t care because that’s what was on my mind. I often read the whole screen of my blog, and I nearly always think ‘Yes….good’. I hardly ever regret posting something.

Last, and really a rather funny thing that’s worthy of comment is my fear of transferring to the new blogger format. Funny because I’ve been raving for ages about getting category tags on Blogger…and now they’re here…BUT that means transferring my blog with the possibility that some of the add-ons and its particular look may shift. Will I be old-skool for ever? Probably not, but I’ve recognised that I may need time when I make that leap and so far I haven’t had it!

(Not really a postscript but another bit after ‘last’). In my teaching I’ve been looking at the blog as a reflective tool…now I’m beginning to see that everywhere. Of course you couldn’t say that it’s part of the blog architecture, blogging is no more or less reflective than any other kind of writing but composing your thoughts for your ideal reader is certainly a common blog genre - long may it thrive!

I think I’ve probably said before that commenting on postings isn’t a really big thing for me as a blogger. It isn’t my cup of tea. I don’t tend to leave comments on other people’s blogs and I’m not particularly bothered whether or not people leave them on mine. In fact, when I first started blogging I had the comments button ‘off’. Maybe this just reflects how I am in meatspace: sometimes I have the comments button off and I can’t be bothered to comment - I don’t know.

Coming back to blogging after a break, I was interested in how lively the comment scene had become for Dr J. OK, K was quiet, but MP, SC and Dr J were leaving comments on each others blogs. And others, too. People I knew had gone comment crazy. At first I felt a bit isolated, like being in the playground when a gang starts up and you’re not in it and people you like are. There’s a conversation going on, but no way in for you.

In Lincoln I started scribbling down what people were saying about comments. Comments about comments. (I haven’t asked permission or anything, so this is sailing close to the wind ethically speaking). Very interesting. MP in conversation: I like blogging cos I get comments; JG (a one-time blogger) I tried blogging, but I felt isolated - maybe I’ll give it another go; SC Even if I get just a few comments it’s OK.

I began to wonder if I’d got it wrong (was a bad blogger or such like), whether this was about different genres of blogs (and what we aspired to), different kinds of people….or gender. I still don’t know. A lot of the blogs I read don’t have many comments at all. But then again, some do. When they do, the tone varies from the rather light-hearted banter that you often get on boards to more serious on-topic ideas stuff, and just about every shade in between.

Anyway, I’ve had a funny week with the world of comments. Well, for a start off I’ve been a bit more outgoing. Rather than just commenting on Dr J, I’ve left comments on VC, A, MP, SC and S. At the same time, I’ve had my best ever week for getting comments - that is if ‘best ever’ is a crude count of the number of comments. One of the postings has drawn 9 (to date). But it’s clearly not simply a reciprocal thing. It’s not as if people have commented on mine because I commented on theirs. There’s not a neat correspondence, and what’s more I’ve had comments from two complete strangers (maybe it’s just because they see that there’s the ‘hum of conversation’; they don’t have to break a silence). I even had an email comment on a posting from someone in the office next door at work!

Have I done something different, this week? Become a nicer person, for instance. Invited comment? Chosen safe topics? Not, conciously. Nothing, unless you count my experiment with being a bit more outgoing - could that subtley come through by own postings? The only thing that comes to mind is the jokeiness of the weird pet theme - does that soften the blog, I wonder.

And after all this ‘mild comment frenzy’, do I care? Does it matter, and what might it change? Well, from the perspective of theory, I love the fact that blog readers can also be writers. Response is good, I’m seduced by the promise of interactivity. But also, when the audience waves you know they’re there and when they shout out, they’re engaging in some way or another.

I’ve not resolved to post differently now, to pander to my audience, to include pets more, or anything like that. I may or may not keep busy commenting on other bloggers. But I have noticed I keep an eye on my blog a bit more. Sometimes it’s down there on the bar while I work (I wonder if anyone else has left a comment?). I wonder if anyone will leave a comment?

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.

I was interested to have a link to this blog left in a comment to my last post here on Blogtrax. left, in fact, by someone who is using blogs with her Y9 class, using it for self assessment and peer assessment.I’ll be interested to follow this project. The magpie blog is a kind of metablog I think, following a dissertation, but also has personal stuff on it.

I heard on the radio this morning about this blog, which has apparently won an award and again, this looks interesting. While this one proclaims to be :

A weblog by Tom Coates who works at BBC Radio and Music Interactive
Concerning social software, mass amateurisation, design, and future media consumption

As far as I can see he is pointing people about the web, showing us stuff and offering comments etc. Interestingly, he explains:

If you’re unfamiliar with weblogs, then probably the best way to describe them is as a launchpad to express your opinions, engage in conversations and note stuff down in public. I’ve been writing this particular weblog since November 1999, when it was very informal and only for a few friends. Today all kinds of people seem to get value from it.

So he has clearly seen his own blog develop from a more private affair to one that is conscious of audience.

My daughter has kept a web diary for YEARSand YEARS. She first set up with diaryland and I think is still with them. But she HATES the way I keep a blogs and hates the way I write in them so often and that I tell people about it. Her view is that blogs should be personal, oprivate, reflective onlife, feelings, secret thoughts etc. She is quite disconcerted by my type of blog.

Now this conflicts totally with say, Torril Mortensen, who writes with Jill Walker saying that,

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.

- which I have discussed here before.

It seems that some bloggers do feel there is a right and a wrong way to blog; I like having more than one blog, because I can put different types of stuff on each one and I enjoy what each genre offers. There are types of blog and if readers believe there is only one sort, then they can misunderstand the content, get upset or disturbed by what is there. You have to know how to read something, to understand the genre, to recognise the genre, in order to properly understand. Hence, some people have said to me, ‘I read your blog. What is it? I don’t understand it?’

So there is something to understand about blogs in general, but there are lots of sorts too.

And when I spelled Torill’s name wrong, and she was discombombulated about this, then it was because I think she was wanting me to follow the same rules as she follows within her family of blogs. Blogs which are academic, which are very reflective and which carefully subscribe to blogging rules evolved amongst her group over a long period. I think that genres in the blogosphere develop likea social history; shared conventions which develop over time through practice. it is impossible to link all blogs, to read all blogs, to have a coherency across them all, so communities, affinities emerge. Interesting.

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 realise that my posts, since Guy went to sleep for a while, have been focussing more on meatspace stuff than on the web itself. I realised this because the last post I did on DrJoolz was all about the Internet and seemed very different from what I had been doing for a while.
It is strange but I feel like I SHOULD have been more focused on the web for my blog, but maybe I should just write what I want and how I want.

I thought that this was really interesting.
It is Anya thinking about what she likes about blogs and it is a little bit of a different list to the one she has put more recently in her newer blog. Just a little sign about developing interests and how we use the web differently to suit different preoccupations in our lives.
I did a similar post here which Kate’s comments added to.

I love the way Anya’s new blog allows her to categorise and file things so that you can check out thins thematically as well as datewise.
We need to do that with this blog and I will investigate.

One of the by-products of this autoethnography thing is that you become a bit focused on your own practice and intent. The blogosphere is full of interesting (and not so interesting) things. Where is Blogtrax on this continuum, I wonder? These thoughts were sparked off by my daughter who sent me this blog, which I guess resonates with something in her experience. It catalogues the problems of sharing a living space - but before you go there, remember to check the number of comments. I Hate My Flatmate is obviously a winner - a pretty impressive affinity space I’d say!