Comments on: on blogging

By: Aimee

Aimee — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:43:21 +0000

Admitting the problem of the “digital divide,” blogging and the internet in general has the potential to work for a more egalitarian society, like you mentioned.

I think it’s terribly important to study this sort of thing if something is happening like the liberalizing force of the “netroots” on the Democratic party today. It definitely seems like a radicalizing tool, and that’s monumental.

By: kristina b

kristina b — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 18:01:36 +0000

oy! don’t tempt me to get sucked into the community of another (closely related and interesting to me) discipline!

the social forces article is awesome. it is all about blogging and social problems. it’s making me think about blogging from a new perspective.

i think you’re right, jon: there are a lot of factors that go into blogging, and there are a lot of different reasons to blog (or not to blog). it’s really quite fascinating to me! in future months i will be setting up a web site a la danah boyd to share my work on the subject.

By: wynnj26

wynnj26 — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 13:50:45 +0000

oh. and it is interesting to examine other disciplines as well, eh? the savage minds folks in anthro have a really rich community…

By: wynnj26

wynnj26 — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 13:49:46 +0000

hmm. i agree. blogging’s pretty tricky. full-scale investment in it is tricky. we had a great discussion about it in my media and tech a few weeks ago. they were really curious to see what my on-line life was like and how that might differ from the in-class persona.
blogging as a ‘pureish’ form seems to require quick, frequent, snappy posts that will get people to return to your site. (or at least that’s mark frauenfelder says in ‘rule the web,’ but he is talking about it as a kind of revenue stream which very few academics would be doing. actually, i wonder if there are any… and i think that some certainly do that. (scatterbrains are some of them.) for my part, i never really looked at it that way. i see it, along with my del.icio.us acct, as the on-line extensions of my brain… depositories for a few of my thoughts that i can connect to in front of the class. academic blogging is hardly a monolith… i wonder what categories ($, depositories, socio-centric posts, pop culture commentaries, etc.) there can be… perhaps in the social forces article.
i think that thinking abt community and knowledge is good, but there is certainly status and distinction going on as well (who you link to, who is in your blogroll, etc.), as is the case with any knowledge community. (and i guess there’s stigmas as well… i recall someone–maybe jeremy–a while ago was talking about blogging and jobs…
ok. enough blog blah blah blahing! back to the book!

By: kristina b

kristina b — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:12:33 +0000

I haven’t, but it’s on my list. Thank you!

By: anomie

anomie — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:21:14 +0000

Have you read the article recently published in Social Problems on blogging?

By: kristina b

kristina b — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:43:11 +0000

It’s funny, but I started blogging (in earnest) for the sake of being a part of the community… but now I get about the same amount of hits that you do, Dave, and I feel the same way. My research actually doesn’t have anything to do with public sociology just yet, but I will definitely move in that direction at some point. I’ll keep you posted!

By: dave p.

dave p. — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:42:59 +0000

Very thoughtful post, Kristina. Thanks for the kind thoughts. I appreciate the community as well, and I’m amazed at how it’s grown, especially over the past year.

If you continue to research blogging, I’ll be interested to hear if you discover anything about the value of blogging from a public sociology perspective. That’s the main reason I blog — I get 80-100 hits per day, and suspect that I reach many more non-academics this way than I ever will through my research.

dp (radio free newport)

By: jeremy

jeremy — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 04:55:24 +0000

I value the community, too.