Pithy Waffles

Too much to discuss this week and apparently too little space to do so. In an effort to stick to the unofficial mandate that blogs fit in the space of a screen I'll break topics into separate posts. I may even tag a few which is utterly foreign (I am, by the way being prompted to do so by blogger which has given me the helpful examples of "scooter", "vacation" and "fall"?!). I find the nature of blogs and blogging rather fascinating because it is still a fairly new medium. Even among the relatively small group that is FTVMS 712 it was clear that opinions on the subject are varied and far from concrete. So what are the characteristics of a "good" blog? Personally I don't like blogs that sound overly authoritative or impersonal, http://www.realgroove.co.nz/Blog.aspx is a perfect example of this. The tone sounds like lofty critics delivering information to the uninformed masses, as such you'll notice that they rarely receive feedback, in fact I have a feeling that nary but a few die hard fans even read it. In short I like blogs that at least appear to do away with the top down style and foster something of a community spirit.

This is clearly not always the case though. In Paul Hodkinson's 'Interactive online journals and individualization' he discusses the contemporary theory of blogs being linked with the trend of increasing individualization in relation to the British goth community. His study was clearly not exhaustive since he followed only members of a particular community who had recently shifted from an online group forum to a blogging service targeted at individuals. In this case respondents did seem to gain more of an individual voice on the blog site as they were no longer confined to discussing matters of specific interest to the Goth community. They were also free of the group sanctions imposed in the group forum on members who offended, on the blogging site participants felt free to express themselves and self sanctioned under the belief that an individuals blog was their own space to say what they pleased. Only the desire to receive feedback on postings drove the participants to shape their posts in a fashion they thought would garner interest. This would prove to be the most interesting aspect of Hodkinson's research; because of interactive features available on some blogging sites such as the ability to respond to another member's posts, the Goths maintained strong ties to their community in the blogging forum despite the obviously individualistic aspects of blogs and blogging culture.

This did not surprise me since it seems to be something of a practical reality on most of the blogs I do read now. While much scholarship has been devoted to the increasing sense of individualization on the internet due to new developments such as blogs, Hodkinson's article was refreshingly less black and white on the subject. It seems that there is still room for online communities to coexist alongside individualization, but with accommodation on both sides of the equation being necessary to facilitate the relationship.

See: Paul Hodkinson (2007). Interactive online journals and individualization. New Media and Society. Vol.
9(4), pp625-50.