In terms of blogs, discuss how participatory culture has impacted on the public sphere both in respect to the way in which it disrupts old paradigmns of power, and entrenches new mechanisms of control.
Definition of ‘Blog’
‘Blogs’ (Web Logs) are homepages where entries are written in chronological order. Started off as ‘online diaries’ in 1994 by some of the earliest bloggers (Jerry Pournelle and Justin Hall), this ‘blogging culture’ has since increased to an approximate of 1.7millions by 2007 (Wikipedia 2007). This number only includes bloggers who register their site with Technorati, the blog search engine.These web pages can be published in many different formats and for different purposes. Most of these web logs are designed in textual forms while there has been an increase in the type of blogs that focus on photos (photoblogs), videos (Vlogs), sketches, music (MP3 blogs), audios (podcasting) and social networking (linklogs).
Characteristics of blogs
Blogs can take the form of public and private (Lovink 2007). Unlike traditional journalist reports, blogs are usually more subjective, with the blogger’s opinions and experiences being the center of the content (Cohen 2006: 99; Lovink 2007). Some blogs involve politics, war, fashion and many others that have a set theme and need reasonable amount of research to publish.
Nevertheless, there are many personal blogs that comes in the form of an ‘online diary’ where bloggers express about their emotions and daily life encounter.
Implication of blogs
Regardless of the different forms and genres of blogs, the easy accessibility, lack of constraints, syndication and wide spread of this virtual culture has created both positive and negatives comments from media professions (Cohen 2006: 162; Lovink 2007).
Geert Lovink, a media theorist and internet activists commented that
"Blogs lead to decay…What’s declining is the “Belief in the message”. Instead of
presenting blog entries as mere self-promotion, we should interpret them as
decadent artifacts that remotely dismantle the broadcast model"
(Lovink 2007)
presenting blog entries as mere self-promotion, we should interpret them as
decadent artifacts that remotely dismantle the broadcast model"
(Lovink 2007)
Are blogs disrupting old paradigms of power by its subjective and personal nature? Or are blogs entrenching new mechanism of control by providing an alternative or ‘feedback channels’ to traditional media?
This research will attempt to answer these questions by analyzing the participatory culture evolving in blogs and its implications to the public sphere as well as the old media. This research will focus on war blogging community; namely soldier blogs, streamtime.org and blogs of Iraq as examples to support the analysis.
New Media
The nature of internet is the ability to convert all media forms into computer code that can be written, read and accessed (Marshall 2004: 17). It is a network device where many input and output connections exist as a node in a web rather than as the centre of a circle (McQuire 1997: 12).
With so many means of output in the network, it implies that if one node of output is denied publication, there is often another way of open publishing the content into the internet.
Hence, the internet can be accessed to a diverse population, with ease of access and less regulations (Schultz 2005: 111). Anyone with an online account can publish content with little to sometimes, no reference to the kind of market constraints or regulatory control in traditional forms of mass media like the radio or print media.
Interactivity in blogs
New media interactivity allows consumers to have the ability to directly intervene in and change the images and texts that they access (Flew 2005: 21). For example, a blogger can copy a photo from another website, edit it and post it on his website as a form of net art or create a link to another relevant blog.
This creates the terms ‘converging media’ and ‘collective intelligence’
Converging media refers simply to the technological shift where the line between consumers and producers are blurred (Jenkins 2004:34). There is a greater scope of horizontal communication between citizens, decision-makers, and other relevant entities (Flew 2002: 188).
Stremtime (a project by independent media, Radio Reedflute and supported by Rastasoft) is a network of media activists to assist local media to get connected for the production of social content in war-torn Iraq. The website creates blog rolls (links) to the blogs of many iraqi civilians, activits, refugees, and bloggers directly or indirectly affected by the war in Iraq. In the website, bloggers can comment on one another’s blogs, exchange information, opinions and share contents.
The producer of one blog can become the consumer in another individual’s blog and interaction can happens across different nations.
This supports French cyberspace theorist Pierre Levy theory of ‘collective intelligence’ in internet where,
‘No one knows everything, everyone knows something, all knowledge resides in humanity’
(Levy 1997, cited in Jenkins 2004: 35)
A virtual space like the one of streamtime allows collective intelligence to be proved a success where similar information and activities can be gathered to gain visibility to relevant users in order to achieve a shared objective.
Participatory culture in blogs
As mention in the mission of Streamtime,
This mission points out the main implications and strengths of a participatory culture: collective intelligence, interactivity and merging of new and old media with a new form of control mechanism.
Participatory culture, as seen by Streamtime, is an interactivity processs.
Participatory culture allows consumers to archive, annotate and recirculate media content (Heather 2006: 170; Negt and Kluge 1993: 136). It involves individual’s media production across multiple media channels and demand more active mode of spectatorship.
In term of blogs, it implies the ability for blogs to archive previous entries, allow for open commentaries from viewers, create links to other media content and the ability to upload video content, audio recordings and images into one media channel.
Participatory culture in blogs encourages a form of power user. The fact that blogs are so accessible with recordability and high interactive level, it can reform the theories of communication (Baym 2002: 68, cited in Flew 2005: 35) .
The interactive level of blogs involves the integration of various types of network activities into one channel. With Streamtime, Dutch Investigative Journalist, Cecile Landman mentioned that this loose network community allowed her to get in contact with iraqis affected by the war (Landman 2006, cited in Lovink 2006). Through their blogs and interaction in sharing of ideas, views and opinions, she has established friendship with these bloggers both in the virtual and real world (Landman 2006, cited in Lovink 2006).
"Streamtime is a loose network of media activists dedicated to assist local
media to get connected... it is a handshake in cyberspace, a hanging garden for
dialogue and cooperation, generated by a sense of solidarity, hospitality and a
desire to communicate and relate…determined by shared needs, skills, knowledge
and experiences of all involved…Streamtime wants to research, indicate, point to
amazing stories of people that, against all odds, are building a new Iraq… break
the media barriers, provide tools and knowledge to build their own radio
broadcast stations, make programs and exchange content"
This mission points out the main implications and strengths of a participatory culture: collective intelligence, interactivity and merging of new and old media with a new form of control mechanism.
Participatory culture, as seen by Streamtime, is an interactivity processs.
Participatory culture allows consumers to archive, annotate and recirculate media content (Heather 2006: 170; Negt and Kluge 1993: 136). It involves individual’s media production across multiple media channels and demand more active mode of spectatorship.
In term of blogs, it implies the ability for blogs to archive previous entries, allow for open commentaries from viewers, create links to other media content and the ability to upload video content, audio recordings and images into one media channel.
Participatory culture in blogs encourages a form of power user. The fact that blogs are so accessible with recordability and high interactive level, it can reform the theories of communication (Baym 2002: 68, cited in Flew 2005: 35) .
The interactive level of blogs involves the integration of various types of network activities into one channel. With Streamtime, Dutch Investigative Journalist, Cecile Landman mentioned that this loose network community allowed her to get in contact with iraqis affected by the war (Landman 2006, cited in Lovink 2006). Through their blogs and interaction in sharing of ideas, views and opinions, she has established friendship with these bloggers both in the virtual and real world (Landman 2006, cited in Lovink 2006).
Public Sphere
This new theories of communication bring about the implication of how the participatory culture in blogging impact on the Public Sphere.
From Habermas’s model of Public Spere, it incubated the ‘private home of the 18th and 19th bourgeois society’. Public Sphere, according to Habermas is to offer opportunity for debating common interest outside the authority of the state. It encourages individuals to come together to debate among themselves issues such as the regulation of civil society and the conduct of the state (Habermas 1992).
To understand the significance of this theory, one has to understand what Habermas and other theorists mean by the term, ‘public’.
‘Public’ is a body of people within a society within which debate about that society can occur (Craig 2003:47). Public involves a space accessible by members of the society to participate in ranges of activities and events for interaction (Craig 2003:47).
Public Sphere takes a new form
In the past, Habermas’s model of Public Spere refers to public spaces like coffee houses (Habermas 1992). However, as the society changes and media emerges, media is often regarded as a medium for Public Sphere.
In The Transformation of Public Sphere, Habermas commented that the public sphere has been transformed from a discursive space to ‘staged displays’ and ways to ‘manipulate the public’ (Habermas). A space where politicians use their power to manipulate the way the public thinks.
This raises the question of whether media has become a medium for authority figures to ‘manipulate’ the public or is it an agency of empowerment and rationality for the public sphere?
With the emergence of the new media and the internet, it encourages a more globalize virtual community with easier access to independent open publishing.
In The Transformation of Public Sphere, Habermas commented that the public sphere has been transformed from a discursive space to ‘staged displays’ and ways to ‘manipulate the public’ (Habermas). A space where politicians use their power to manipulate the way the public thinks.
This raises the question of whether media has become a medium for authority figures to ‘manipulate’ the public or is it an agency of empowerment and rationality for the public sphere?
With the emergence of the new media and the internet, it encourages a more globalize virtual community with easier access to independent open publishing.
Blogs and its implication to Public Sphere
Blogs are an example of this ‘new public space’ in the virtual world (Negt and Kluge 1993: 144).
Big conglomerates and organization are now starting to ‘invade’ this new rise in the blogsphere with The Age Oline featuring blogs associated with the organization to attract consumers and big conglomerates like googles taking authority on what is allowed accessibility through google search ,Youtube, blogger.com and other outlets.
Big conglomerates and organization are now starting to ‘invade’ this new rise in the blogsphere with The Age Oline featuring blogs associated with the organization to attract consumers and big conglomerates like googles taking authority on what is allowed accessibility through google search ,Youtube, blogger.com and other outlets.
However, the nature of network device implies that blogs are still relatively free from state control and regulation. Individuals outside state or aristocracy and with an internet access can still find a means to voice out their opinions or share ideas through the web. Few examples are independent online communities such as Stremtime, GlobalVoices and Indymedia.
The network of blogs give opportunity for the rise of independent publishing that can produce more localized, ‘on the spot’ narrative on current events to reach wider audience (Terry 2005: 88). It has the potential to provide complete environment for the possibility of exchange and interplay.
For example, the rise of Iraqi civilian bloggers who can post their experiences, opinions and viewpoint of the war, implies evidences that this medium can indeed raise the voice of ordinary citizens, whose voice would most probably be left unheard through the traditional mainstream media (Landman 2006, cited inLovink 2006).
The network of blogs give opportunity for the rise of independent publishing that can produce more localized, ‘on the spot’ narrative on current events to reach wider audience (Terry 2005: 88). It has the potential to provide complete environment for the possibility of exchange and interplay.
For example, the rise of Iraqi civilian bloggers who can post their experiences, opinions and viewpoint of the war, implies evidences that this medium can indeed raise the voice of ordinary citizens, whose voice would most probably be left unheard through the traditional mainstream media (Landman 2006, cited inLovink 2006).
(Example of an iraqi civilian blog: Treasure of Baghdad)
As Cecile Landman puts it, blogging has allowed for "someone (Iraqis) who was not allowed to talk, or use his voice, for long, long years. Now have started talking with the outside" (Landman 2006, cited in Lovink 2006)
As consumers are more skeptical about conventional journalism which works for large organization, blogs give a broader spectrum to the way information can be reached to a wider public.
This is the contrast between the objectivity of journalism and the subjectivity nature of blogs.
Blogs are mostly inward-looking. They normally do not provide new information. They provide immediacy. Blogs publish reflective and controversial analysis that would otherwise not be possible in op-ed pages.
In a way, blogs are ‘more private and personal than traditional journalism and more public than diaries’ (Negt and Kluge 1993: 179). The lack of constraints in blogs means the ability to create cultural diversity and lower barriers to cultural participation (Bruns and Jacobs 2006: 20). The same kind of ‘personal’ information or ideas can be framed differently to suite the blogger’s ideology and agenda (Bruns and Jacobs 2006: 189; McQuire 1997: 11). As a result, the range of perspective is expanded and information is shaped to interest particular readers more specifically than corporate media can achieve (Negt and Kluge 1993:180). This increases the spectrum of consumers interested in public affairs.
For example, the same event that happen in Iraq will be commented differently from the one of an Iraqi civilian blog and one of an America Soldier in Iraq. The subjectivity of blogs to put in personal opinions into events invites a more diverse audience with similar viewpoints or physical environment.
In this virtual space, audience becomes more selective. Nevertheless, it is this individualistic choice that audience can actually acknowledge and raise interest of the presence to pay more attention to blogs than the conventional old media form of journalism.
"Blogs re-wire the circuit through which we comfortably reflect on ourselves,
the ways in which we use intimacy to distinguish self from other, the way in
which we care and come to care.."
(Cohen 2006: 169)
Very often, it is this ‘narcissism’ in blogs that attract more public interest.
Blogs and its impact on a more democratic form of
the Public Sphere
The theory of Public Sphere is the revolution of a democratic politics where ‘social terrain and communicative process is seen’ (Craig 2003: 51). It should function as a mechanism where issues affecting ‘public good’ such cultural, ideological or political can be discussed regardless of individual rank (Craig 2003: 51).
This theory of a democratic public sphere is not seen in the Habermas’ model which focuses on the bourgeosis society.
Disregarding digital divide, blogs present the opportunity for the rise of the press that was relatively free from state control and regualation. Bloggers in Streamtime can blog about national issues independently with little regulations from authorities.
Old and New media: How blogging affects the operation of traditional media
There is an inter-relationship between old and new media. With the rise of blogging, there is a new mechanism of control for democracy and the Public Sphere.
Many consumers are using the new media technologies to engage with old media content, re-working content for different outlets; both in new and old media (Bruns and Jacobs 2006: 22; McQuire 1997: 10).
With lower cost of production, blogs can hence, reshape and recirculate media content.
For tacticle media user, this means that blogs can insure that important message get more widely circulated by increasing the diversity of media culture (Lovink 2003). This provides for greater inclusiveness and makes content more responsive to consumers. As a result the power and visibility of blogging in media is increase.
Blogs give a more in-depth analysis and alternative perspectives (Bruns and Jacobs 2006:18). They make news more accessible, discursive and interactive.
Bloggers very often do not provide new information or news on its own. They are not replacing mainstream media with an alternative but merely documenting the diminishing power of mainstream media by creating pressure to the content which traditional media report (Lovink 2007).
Blogs become a new mechanism of control to the content published by traditional media platform by acting as ‘feedback channels’ and ‘gate watchers’ of mainstream media (Lovink 2007).“The whole blogsphere is an example of how transcendent the top-down
hierarchical models of old media technology with new media technology releases
diversity and new voices and creations. They have the potential to alter the
general public’s understanding of a person, place, product or
phenomenon"(Lovink 2007)
As blogs are more flexible and harder to be regulated by authorities, they rise as a platform for more opinionated debates and discussions to take place. Some traditional journalists use blogs to bring across their viewpoints and opinions that can otherwise not be accepted in their job in the mainstream media (Lovink 2007).
For example, Kevin, a journalist currently working for NBC news in Asia has himself, an independent blog, Kevin sites, that is not controlled by the mainstream media (Piper and Miguel 2005). Cecile Landman also has an independent blog of her own (X-er files).
This online community is also starting to produce participatory journalism where mainstream media feed upon to fully utilize the digital media environment (Bucy 2005: 72).
Conclusion
Gated communities and locative media are slowly emerging in the virtual community (Marshall 2004: 19). Even though blogs create pressure as gate watchers to mainstream media, large organization still have the ability to eliminate ‘unacceptable’ or content that are capable of violating their interest.
For example, Joshua Kucera, a journalist in Time magazine was demanded by the editors of the magazine to shut down his blog, The other Side because of his coverage of the Iraq war in his blog (Piper and Miguel 2005).
In respect to the power of large conglomerates and the power of political figures in the media and public sphere, it is almost inevitable that these organizations can impose regulations and control to the world of communication.
Nevertheless, the rise of the ‘blogging culture’ has given rise to a new mechanism of control and enhances the model of public sphere.
Voices of individuals such as the Iraqi citizens would never have been heard if not for blogging through cyberspace.
Blogs create democracy in the virtual world. It is this democracy in ‘virtual world’ that impact on the ‘real world’ democracy as the public can be influenced by what one produces or consumed in the internet and behave or react differently.
The outcome and specific implication of blogs to the public sphere, democracy and control over traditional media is still unknown. However, from its level of interactivity, accessibility and increasing users in the ‘blogging culture’ (as seen with online organization such as Streamtime, Future of Iraq portal and how the lives of the soldiers fighting in Iraq are learnt through their blogs), it shows that there is a high potential for transforming existing structures of knowledge and power through blogging.
Voices of individuals such as the Iraqi citizens would never have been heard if not for blogging through cyberspace.
Blogs create democracy in the virtual world. It is this democracy in ‘virtual world’ that impact on the ‘real world’ democracy as the public can be influenced by what one produces or consumed in the internet and behave or react differently.
The outcome and specific implication of blogs to the public sphere, democracy and control over traditional media is still unknown. However, from its level of interactivity, accessibility and increasing users in the ‘blogging culture’ (as seen with online organization such as Streamtime, Future of Iraq portal and how the lives of the soldiers fighting in Iraq are learnt through their blogs), it shows that there is a high potential for transforming existing structures of knowledge and power through blogging.
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