NET11 Readings - Topic 2.1 : Into the Blogosphere

I found the two set readings for this topic really interesting.  An excerpt of Rebecca Blood's Rebecca's Pocket provided a history and predictions for the future of blogging, from the year 2000.  The emergence of blogging as an accessible tool for the general internet user was just beginning to take effect.  The most common types of blog were changing.  Blood comments interestingly on the effects of blogging on the blogger; making him/her more confident and able to express his thoughts and ideas articulately. A 'community of 100 or 20 or 3 people may spring up around the public record of his thoughts'.  Blood talks about the consequences of this phenomenon; met with friendly voices in response, the blogger begins to trust his/her own opinions and instinctively becomes more reflective as opposed to reactive, and consider his/her own ideas more worthy of attention.  He/she will grow 'impatient with waiting to see what others think before he decides, and will begin to act in accordance with his inner voice instead'.  Thus blogging is a pathway to self-development and a way to make sense of the cacophony of information that constantly assaults us in this media age.  Blogs empower individuals.

In 'Blogging' by Jill Walker Rettberg 2008 (ch. 3 p57-83), Rettberg explores the phenomenon of social networking. She asserts blogging is a sort of 'free-form' type of social networking, through the way bloggers tend to read other blogs, and link to them; this way communities form. The theory of 'weak ties' (Mark Granovetter 1973) is explored; what this attempts to explain is that weak ties (or less strong friendships) between individuals are more important in the dissemination of information than strong ties.  The theory is that people with strong ties, or strong friendships, are more likely to possess the sa,e or similar information.  Acquaintances, or people with whom you have 'weak ties' are more likely to possess different information to that which you possess.  In the social network, a single person or 'node' may have strong ties to you but weak ties to another completely different network.  In this way new information can be introduced into your network.  Rettberg provides definition to the terms 'synchronous-' and 'asynchronous-conversations', such as a face to face chat (synchronous) and posts in a discussion on a forum (asynchronous).

The concept of publicly articulated conversations is simple.  Social networking conversations on the web, through blogs or sites like Facebook,  are persistent (meaning they exist after the conversation has actually taken place, perhaps even permanently with archiving of content taking place).  They are searchable, meaning that those outside of the intended participants in the conversation can find the details of it long after it occurred.  These interactions are being carried out in the public sphere.  Two other fundamental characteristics Rettberg identifies of the concept are reblicability (photos, conversation, videos etc can be copied and modified do there is no way of telling them apart from the original) and invisible audiences (you don't know who is reading your page or your blog; it could be your friends, your mother or your boss).

The concept of colliding networks is also simple; groups or networks in your social circle that once would have remained quite seperate and happily so (for example, your friends and your family, or your bosses at work) are now starting to be visible to each other.  There are some ways to restrict visibility of parts of your profile or some of your posts online (depending on the site you use), but this is cumbersome to navigate.

Finally Rettberg talks about the emerging nature of social networks.  It is an evolving phenomenon, and perhaps in the future it will be obvious that we are only at the very inception of what it will one day evolve into.