Week 6: Issues in Blogging

For this week’s blog, I read an article and watched a couple of videos about blogging.  It is very interesting to see the many issues that surround this media format. Therefore, I will be concentrating on the various issues surrounding the blog sphere.  The YouTube videos I watched were Networks, Power, and Democracy and Digital Youth, Social Movements, and Democracy in Brazil. I read Weblogs and the Public Sphere by Andrew O'Baoill. This week’s installment will be focusing on the practice of blogging and these following questions: What are the tools and techniques being put into practice? What are the key issue(s) outlined in or underlying the text (think in terms of Green’s model: operational, cultural and critical)? What are your feelings and opinions on the reading?

Green’s approach concentrates on 3 aspects: operational, cultural and critical.  The operational component concentrates on using the language system to decode and encode in a range of contexts.  The cultural part uses operational strategies to receive and transmit meaning. The critical dimension recognizes the socially constructed nature of knowledge and literacy practices.  The critical dimension also involves considering alternative solutions. 

As far as the operational skills needed to function in the blogosphere, it is very easy to write a blog.  This short paragraph will also address the tools and techniques being put into practice in the blogging world.  A perfect example is this blog you are reading right now.  It was created on Blogger. I logged on through my Google account, began typing and then clicked publish.  The process is so easy that minimal computer literacy is necessary to blog. In O’Baoill’s article this is described as an aspect of inclusivity.  By inclusivity in the blogging world, the author writes that “participation is open to all.”  Anybody with an internet connection can get involved in blogging for no financial charge.

The cultural dimension is where it gets interesting.  Blogging in many ways has created its own culture.  Another idea mentioned in O’Baoill’s article is, in a blog “any issue can be raised for rational debate.” Because blogging is an open forum for anyone to publish their views online, there will be a multitude of blogging topics and possibly a multitude of opinions on each individual topic.  Besides getting information from traditional sources, blogging allows alternative topics and subjects to be amplified within the information world.  Also the ability to comment on other peoples blogs has effects on the cultural dimension.  Lively discussions on blog posts whether positive or negative are conducted in the cultural dimension as users attempt to create meaning in their world views.

In the critical dimension we consider alternative solutions.  One of the videos from this week is a most powerful information resource concerning blogging in the critical dimension, Digital Youth, Social Movements, and Democracy in Brazil.  In this video Raquel Recuero gives a discourse on how blogging and social media is making social and political changes in Brazil. She touches on many issues.  One of her topics was an online debate concerning the construction of a controversial power plant.  Another subject was gay marriage.  The most poignant subject was of the favelas or poverty stricken areas of Brazil.  Some residents of the favelas are given internet access and tools to create blogs, websites and other social media to report on the living conditions in impoverished communities.  This technology has given a powerful voice to the oppressed members of society in Brazil.    By having a forum to criticize the powers that be in Brazil, blogging has empowered the powerless.  This is a prime example of blogging in the critical dimension.

            One of the topics that interested me was the rank of the blogs.  How do blogs get views? In  Networks, Power, and Democracy, Saskia Sasson explains that the top blogs may not be alternative news.  The top blogs may be connected to established publications commenting on what they believe to be the top stories.  They get the majority of the views because people generally want to read what their friends think is important.  These top stories get momentum and do not necessarily represent the alternative views that Sasson believes was the original intention of blogs.  O’Baoill comments that some blogs get readership because of connections to bigger organizations.  These 2 commentaries are congruent in my mind.  Connected blogs get views, which gains momentum exponentially.  Both O’Baoill and Sasson believe that blogs are not as “democratic” as they were intended to be.  I hope this opens a lively discussion.

O'Baoill, A. (2004). Weblogs and the Public Sphere. Into the blogosphere. Retrieved June 23, 2015, from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/weblogs_and_the_public_sphere.html

One thought on Jenkins paper on Participatory culture

I learned of the recent Baltimore riots while watching TV in a doctor’s office.  They reported something about a riot and a baseball game.  I checked my iPhone to find out how a baseball game caused a full scale riot.  I found that it had less to do with baseball and more to do with police brutality.  I followed the story over the next couple weeks and changed my mind at least 2 times – as I learned more about the incident and read other’s opinions.  In the past, current events came from print newspapers.  Reader participation occurred if there was a published letter to the editor. There was limited print space and the letters to the editor were perhaps edited or censored by the editor.  We now have as Jenkins explains, new platform for empowerment.  The Jenkins article points to “Beta-reading as editorial feedback provided by online fan communities.”  Most online articles about the Baltimore riots had a space for comments made by people in the online community following this story.  This “affinity space” can be where informal learning takes place. To paraphrase one of the comments made by one of our colleagues (or peers) on my last blog post, Joe Lamere, “I fear that those who can get drawn into the web of one-sided opinions, and extremely hateful views.”  Some of the comments were valid (in my opinion), some were racist and not fact based.  As Jenkins states, in participatory culture we can use this affinity space to share information as peers – we must also empower students with the tools to evaluate the quality of information where informal learning takes place.

Week 3 Participatory Culture

          The task for this blog is a commentary on a topic or issue from the Networked Publics book edited by Varnelis.  This is very difficult considering that it is a book that discusses many different ideas from various authors from assorted disciplines with diverse concentrations.  In the introduction, Mizuko Ito explains that the book is tied together by 4 key trends: “accessibility to digital tools and networks, many-to-many and peer-to-peer forms of distribution, value at the edges, and aggregation of culture and information.” (Varnelis, 2008) I chose to concentrate on the 1^st key trend and issue: accessibility to digital tools and networks.  As I stated before, it was difficult to choose 1 topic, because they are all interrelated.  I will try to stay focused on the issue of accessibility and also the assigned prompts guiding the reflection.

            The title of the book is Networked Publics, and is defined by Ito as: “linked set of social, cultural, and technological developments that have accompanied the growing engagement with digitally networked media.”  (Varnelis, 2008) He clarifies this definition in explaining that networked publics is an alternative term to audience or consumer.  This concept as network publics being an informational consumer is directly related to access issues spoken about in the video from Henry Jenkins.  Jenkins touches on many issues, but they are all contingent on networked publics internet access.  He is speaking about the emergent participatory culture that has developed out of emerging technologies.  This internet culture is participatory because it gives the connected data consumer the ability to participate in information gathering, dissemination, creation and collaboration like never before. 

            What are the tools and techniques (or new skills) being put into practice? The book was written in 2008 so the tools discussed aren’t so new, but the skills and implications are many.  When it comes to accessibility all of the readings and videos point to the low barriers needed for internet access.  Yochai Benkler writes about easy access by explaining, “The move to a communications environment built on cheap processors with high computation capabilities, interconnected in a pervasive network.”  The tools needed are ubiquitous: smart phones, laptop computers, tablets, GPS and iPods.  The access is almost ever-present using various wireless networks that connect the networked public to the Web.  I work in NYC and many subway stations have free WiFi underground.  If you have the tool, you can pay for a connection or find a free hotspot.  I am currently at a public library on vacation in Virginia using their internet connection.  There are many implications to this ubiquitous accessibility.  I will concentrate on one skill: multitasking.  Varnelis writes about the telecocoon concept in his chapter with Friedberg.  He uses as an example the tools available in the modern car.  While I am driving on my vacation, I have simultaneously working technologies similar to Varnelis’ example such as: GPS, iPod, and blue tooth connection to my phone.  Inside this telecocoon of an automobile I have a connection to an unquestionably large information network.  While I am engaged in all this technology, I am also driving.  This is the modern art of multitasking that I believe many of us are participating, yet we don’t think too much about it.

            What is/are the key issue(s) outlined in or underlying the text (think in terms of Green’s model: operational, cultural and critical)?  There are many issues outlined in the text including the major legal matter of Copyright in the digital age.  We have access to text, movies, music, and other copyrighted material.  We do not have the right to copy someone else’s intellectual property, yet most of us networked publics are posting copyrighted material on our social network sites without regard for legality.  It is the ubiquitous access that allows for many types of copyright infringement.  It would be almost impossible to prosecute all copyright violators and if they were ever successful most networked publics would be guilty.

            Returning to Green’s model in relation to accessibility, the operational dimension is a low hurdle.  The most obvious operational concepts in relation to accessibility have already been discussed: the ease of acquiring the tools needed to participate and the wireless access that is almost everywhere.  Getting deeper into the skills needed for access into the network, Jenkins says that there are low barriers and informal mentoring in learning how to operate in our participatory culture.  Many of the operational skills are intuitive.  My 3 year old daughter can already open my smart phone and access her favorite games and websites.  Many of the college students I have instructed are digital immigrants.  I have successfully mentored most of them into participatory culture in my information literacy course.  I have taught students who were in prison for over 10 years and have no internet skills.  I told them that they are in the right place to get acclimated to modern society and become employable.  I have taught a mother and son in the same class.  The son caught on to many of the concepts faster, but the mother soon caught up in digital literacy.  These skills are intuitive and easily taught if they are not acquired naturally.

            The cultural dimension is related to access in how this accessibility is being used.  Varnelis makes a perfect example in explaining the modern scenario at any Starbucks coffee house.  You have assorted people connecting to remote assorted people in the same physical space.  In the scenario, “a woman next to you is browsing the internet with her laptop, a late-career executive is thumbing his Blackberry, two students are studying together…” (Varnelis, 2008) He goes on to illustrate a familiar scene.  Varnelis even sets up this scenario explaining that even if you go to Starbucks with your moleskin notebook without your cell phone because you are trying to break away from the network, it cannot be avoided.  Like organized crime, once initiated, you can never leave the network.  Other cultural implications include internet dating – which a whole blog can be written about.

            In my opinion, it is the critical dimension that is most crucial.  This is where my feelings and opinions will be expressed most strongly.  Information is not only easy to access, but indicative of participatory culture, easy to publish.  In the old publishing cycle, if you wanted your information disseminated you had to go through a long process.  Maybe your information would be rejected along the way.  In the modern publication cycle, anybody can instantly publish their viewpoints.  Anybody can compose a blog or start a webpage on most any subject matter. Jenkins sees this in a positive light in that this allows for alternative views.  There is also a negative spin to the ease of publication on the internet.  As detailed in last week readings, there are spoof websites. There are also racist and sexist websites and blogs.  Google “Martin Luther King” and http://www.martinlutherking.org/ will be on the first page of search results. It may seem to be a legitimate webpage, but was created by a white supremacist organization.  Students must be critical in evaluating the information available.  Not everything that is accessible is credible.

            I have some closing thoughts in regard to accessibility.  Jenkins is articulate in projecting the positive implications of participatory culture.  He cites a South American politician that believes that network publics can solve many of the world’s problems.  But he acknowledges the social responsibility of all participants when using the modern interpretation of Peter Parker/Spiderman metaphor.  Peter’s uncle in speaking of emerging technology says, “Great power is in your hands.  More power than any previous generation could have imagined.”  This is the acknowledgement of the danger, “with great power comes great responsibility.”  The most negative example I can think of is the Boston Marathon bombing.  The news stated that the terrorists learned to make the bomb from the internet.  I would like to close with the questions: Is all the information accessible beneficial to society? How can we best use and produce accessible information for the benefit of society?

 

References

Varnelis, K. (Ed.). (2008). Networked Publics. Mass: MIT Press. Retrieved from http://networkedpublics.org/