Paper summary:
This paper reports on a small-scale ethnographic study of the practices of contemporary bloggers, in relation to two New Zealand blogs. The goal of this research is to elucidate the ways in which people consume blogs in their everyday lives and how they make sense of their experiences, a largely overlooked area of research concerning blogs. I did this by interviewing twenty-three people, predominantly via computer-mediated-communication (CMC), about their individual blogging practices.
The two case-study blogs, Kiwiblog and Hardnews comment on news and politics and were chosen because they offered a richer scope of discursive blogging compared to other, less topical or well-known, New Zealand blogs. It is relevant to note that these are current-events based blogs rather than the personal, journal-style blogs, which proliferate in the blogosphere and as such my findings pertain predominantly to blogging practices surrounding current-events blogs.
As a global phenomenon allowing millions of people access to distinct forms of self-expression and interaction online, it is important to attend to such straightforward questions as why people blog, and what the significance of blogging is. What prompts people to use these electronic discussion spaces, and what do they get out of it? Why do they invest significant portions of their time and energy in online communication spaces? By exploring the modes of operation within the blogosphere, we can begin to understand the power that lies in what we make of the tools given to us in this unique electronic medium.
Presenter profile:
Amie Mills
After stumbling across the blogosphere quite by accident in 2004 I became utterly fascinated by it, more than a little consumed by it and devoted my last year at university to a research project on the consumption of New Zealand blogs.
I had completed a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and Media Studies, twisting essay topics whenever I could to explore concepts of blogging and yet I didn’t feel that I had got blogs out of my academic system. In 2005 I conducted a small-scale ethnographic study of the practices of contemporary bloggers in relation to two New Zealand blogs.
I am still captivated by the blogosphere and the shifting, fluid nature of communication online. I think it is important to address the straightforward questions as to why people blog, and what the significance of blogging is. Why do people invest significant portions of their time and energy into blogging and what do they get out of it?