Seminar 9 The Blogosphere

Introduction to the Digital Liberal ArtsMDST 3703 / 7703

Fall 2010

Business

• Mid-terms graded and available • Synthetic responses– To repeat: Due on Thursday, comments to

colleagues on Friday• Excellent responses this week . . .

MidtermsESSAY A: Hypertext

Affordance : Intertextuality, open narrative, writerly text, freedom, mind modelling, incompleteness

Implementations: varies with affordance; some implemented more than othersUnanticipated: social media, worlds; for HT theorists, it's all about text

ESSAY B: Fast HorsesHorse = LibraryFast horse = cars designed like horse-drawn carriages = use of library metaphor to

structure contentExamples: VOST to THLExample of breaking away: use of cross-cutting categories to link content

ESSAY C: Contextual Mass Quality vs. Quantity, Needs of a community, Selection and Organization, Diversity of

media . . . Not critical mass (or textual mass)Mechanisms: organizational devices, e.g. categories, comparison tools, etc. -- anything

that connects items VOTS does not have it, THL and Blake went both ways, Rossetti and WOD best examples

Review

• Last week we looked at Unsworth, Wesch, and Shirky– Two methods of classification available to digital

scholars– Both are useful

• The we learned to use Delicious – Tag based – Illustrates Shirky’s ideas

Overview

• This week we turn to the Blogosphere– One of the reasons that bookmarking software

emerged in the first place• We want to know:– What is the history of blogging?– What is the nature of blogging?– Is it useful for academic work?– If so, how?

Was blogging new?

“Blogging was embraced in the late ’90s by the masses but was preceded by isolated projects spearheaded by visionary individuals. … The blog interface is, perhaps, an invention but the act of blogging itself is a combination of several trends in early internet behavior. A blog is a discussion board (USENET), a trading post (mod.ber), a newspaper (Cleveland freenet), a journal (Open Diary), an encyclopedia (travel-library.com) . . .”

Another open narrative …

History• Word coined by John Barger 1997– Web + Log = “blog”

• Began as hand made online diaries, “personal home pages,” and lists of things– Drudge Report

• Eventually blogging software emerged with fixed certain features– Radio UserLand, Blogger, Moveable Type, WordPress– River of news, archives, blogrolls, RSS …

• Evolved into a platform for personal publishing– And the “feed”

http://www.ikissyou.org/

1997News aggregation

Distinctive Features

• Blurring of Public and Private, Formal and Informal discourse– Personal Broadcasting / Publishing– Individual as “brand”

• The List as organizational framework– No imposed document framework, just an unending

feed (hence RSS-able)– A personal database of thoughts …

• Linking becomes overtly about personal relationships

• Space over Time ….

Academic writing, journalism

Letters, Diaries

Informal Formal

Priv

ate

Publ

ic

Non-fiction Genres

Blogs Academic writingJournalism

LettersDiaries

Prayers?

Informal Formal

Priv

ate

Publ

ic

Non-fiction Genres

What are the lexia of the blog?How are they connected?

Internal and External Structure

• Internal– Posts– “River of news”– Date, categories, tags– Permalinks

• External– Trackbacks See Amanda French’s post– Pingbacks Updates sent to – Technorati– FOAF

Spatial Reach (Geography)

Tim

e D

epth

(His

tory

)

Western Tradition

The Web

The Space-time of Content

Can blogging replace the academic essay?

PRESTIGE?

Academic blogs

• Amanda French (amandafrench.net)• From the Hands of Quacks

(jaivirdi.wordpress.com)• Grand Text Auto (grandtextauto.org)• Savage Minds (savageminds.org)• Leiter Reports

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2010/10/most-significant-philosophers-of-science-of-the-20th-century-the-results.html

Another search zone on the Web

• Delicious, Diigo Bookmarks • Digg, Reddit Bookmarks with comments• Technorati, Google Blogs, blogs.com BLOGS• Google News and Scholar Other

• Set up Google Reader -- DONE• Search for blogs on Google Blogs, Technorati,

and Blogs.com– Look for Academic blogs relating to your areas

• Add useful blogs to Google Reader– Use tags– then see how they are they are tagged in Delicious

Exercise