Social Interaction Technologies and the Future of Blogging

In an age of user-generated content, multimedia sharing sites, and customized news aggregators, an assortment of Internet-based social interaction technologies transforms the Web and its users. A quintessential embodiment of social interaction technologies, blogs are widely used by people across diverse geographies to locate information, create and share content, initiate conversations, and collaborate and interact with others in various settings. This chapter surveys the global blogosphere landscape for the latest trends and developments in order to evaluate the overall direction that blogging might take in the future. The author posits that network-based peer production and social media convergence are the driving forces behind the current transformation of blogs. The participatory and inclusive nature of social interaction technologies makes blogging a medium of choice for disseminating user-driven content and particularly suitable for bottom-up grassroots initiatives, creativity, and innovation.

The First Amendment’s Impact on Bloggers

This chapter examines the First Amendment’s challenges to bloggers in the United States and highlights the potential legal consequences for victimizing someone online. While the First Amendment protects an overall right to free speech, there are certain boundaries to this right. Federal Internet-related speech laws, libel, invasion of privacy, copyright, trademark, and others are analyzed within the context of blogging. The author discusses the potential legal consequences to blogging at work or after hours and how personal blogs can negatively impact the work environment. Several Supreme Court cases are discussed to assist bloggers in understanding the scope of contemporary Internet free speech laws. An analysis of U.S. federal laws restricting online speech and an overview of the following areas of speech law are provided: libel, invasion of privacy, protection for confidential sources, copyright, trademark, true threats, and obscenity.

Blogging for Sovereignty

Blogs addressing political issues are often viewed as highly polarized online discussion spaces. To test the universality of this assumption, the authors evaluated 127 Palestinian blogs written in both Arabic and English languages. Blogs authored by Palestinians living in the Palestinian Territories and the State of Israel, members of the Palestinian Diaspora, and Palestinian advocates of other nationalities were analyzed in terms of the prevalence of political content, perceptions of the State of Israel, and differences in content due to language, nationality, and geographical location. Results of the analysis indicate that blogs in the sample were primarily political and that most blogs were critical of the State of Israel and its policies. The tone of discourse regarding the State of Israel, however, was not as reflexively visceral as one might have anticipated, particularly among blogs written in English and those authored by Palestinian advocates.

The Funhouse Mirror

Depictions of professional sports and athletes in U.S. mainstream media have generally been indicted for reinforcing masculine hegemony and ignoring women’s and amateur sports. This study explored the attitudes and values of independent sports bloggers in relationship to gender and, more specifically, to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded institutions. A survey of 200 independent sports bloggers was conducted to determine whether the sports blogosphere provides an alternative to depictions of sports offered through mainstream media coverage. Survey results demonstrate that the sports blogosphere has yet to become a truly alternative, egalitarian space for sports commentary. The analysis suggests that increased participation of female bloggers who are willing to cover female athletes and advocate for women’s sports can alleviate the situation. Otherwise, the sports blogosphere will merely replicate old-media values.

The Blogosphere in the “Land of Smiles”

Since the turn of the century, Thailand, dubbed as the “Land of Smiles,” has been racked by internal political instability, turmoil, and violence. This study assesses how an ongoing political crisis in Thailand is deconstructed via blogs. A qualitative content analysis of 45 blogs (838 posts) about Thailand indicates that during a peak period of massive anti-government protests in the spring of 2010, blog posts about the crisis tended to fall under three categories: (a) creating a partisan view of the political conflict, which largely mirrored the dominant discourses already present in mainstream media; (b) presenting a dispassionate account that often provided a synthesis of different viewpoints; or (c) offering improvised accounts of what expatriate-tourist bloggers perceived to be important yet having little context to explain. It is argued that although blogging potentially offers new spaces for representing political perspectives in and about Thailand, these perspectives do not always enhance the public’s understanding of the political processes and in some cases fan the flames of inflammatory rhetoric.

The Status of Blogging in the Republic of Ireland

This chapter examines the phenomenon and the status of blogging in the Republic of Ireland. It focuses on the social, cultural, political, technological, and legal factors that have influenced the existence and functioning of the Irish blogosphere and seeks to ascertain whether it is in good health, in decline, or in transition. To date, there is no research on the history and evolution of Irish blogging, and there are no assessments of the status of the blogging practice in the Republic of Ireland. This case study scrutinizes the history of blogging in Ireland, traces its evolution, and draws conclusions about the state of Irish blogging. Data collection for the study involved an extensive review of Irish blogs as well as e-mail and phone interviews with Irish bloggers. The authors conclude that the Irish blogosphere is vibrant, diverse, and evolving; additionally, they offer directions for future research.

Blogs as a Source of Democratic Deliberation

This chapter examines the deliberative potential of blogs and blog users. It investigates whether heavy reliance on blogs promotes positive characteristics—political efficacy, political interest, and political involvement—needed to foster democratic deliberation, or whether it leads to negative attributes—low trust, selective exposure, and political partisanship—that hinder democratic deliberation. Results show that unlike those who rarely rely on blogs, heavily dependent individuals are more involved in current events and are more trusting of the government, but they are also more likely to practice selective exposure by reading ideologically consistent blogs. Further, heavy reliance predicts involvement and selective exposure. The deliberative potential of blogs is boosted by users’ involvement in political issues but impeded by their propensity to seek out blogs that contain agreeable information. Instead of evolving into a public sphere, blogs may be becoming issue-oriented zones in which deliberation is limited to an ideological perspective.

Getting Schooled

Although the entrance of blogs into mainstream sports media has not been firmly established, there is evidence that blogs have attained a growing level of credibility particularly as a result of their role in facilitating sports fan communities. Applying the metaphor of a classroom, this chapter discusses how an alternative perspective voiced on a blog can, through the blog’s interactive features, create a community and enable the blog’s transition into the mainstream. Founded in 2004, KnickerBlogger.Net was designed to fill a niche by providing a viewpoint that was not covered by mainstream sports media. The argument is made that by being a “classroom” for sports fans, KnickerBlogger.Net has created learning opportunities and transitioned from an unknown blog expressing one person’s opinion to an affiliate of ESPN.com, a top sports network in the U.S.

Fame, Fantasy, Fanfare and Fun

Phenomenal growth in recent years has made the Chinese blogosphere the largest blogging space in the world. By embedding the blogs against the backdrop of the broad context of the Internet communication environment in China, this chapter offers a panoramic overview of the fast-evolving Chinese blogosphere and critically assesses its social, cultural, and political ramifications. The chapter starts with an examination of landmark developments and milestone events in the historical trajectory of blogging in China in the past decade, followed by an in-depth analysis of major trends, popular practices, and dominant blogger groups. Finally, the chapter evaluates emerging platforms and themes unfolding on the horizon, and discusses their future implications.

Analyzing Blogs

An operating public blog was selected as a case for a depth study blending mixed perspectives. The aim of the research was to compare the face value of the blog with social dynamics operating beneath the surface of the blog for which the investigator had special knowledge. The perspectives applied in the study converged from the general fields of communication, philosophy, and other social sciences. Specific theories from semantics, argumentation, and rhetoric were emphasized in the discourse analysis. Especially useful to this research was an analysis of preferred, negotiated, and oppositional readings (or interpretations) of discourse in general and blogs in particular. Blog posts were analyzed, interpreted, and assessed—particularly in light of what was not overtly communicated. The findings of this depth analysis were consistent with empirical studies that have found that blogs may not provide the optimal platform for the deliberative sharing of ideas but may serve to draw likeminded bloggers. Insofar as this study addressed an allegedly helping type of public blog, it may have heuristic value for similar instances. To the extent that this study addressed diverse levels of meaning in a particular public blog, it may contribute to understanding levels of meaning in blogs in general.