rebeccahedley

 “No matter how much talk there is of community and mobs, the fact remains that blogs are primarily used as a tool to manage the self”.

According to BlogPulse, an ‘automated trend discovery system for blogs’, as of today, the 25 May 2011, there are a total of 162,528,127 identified blogs in existence. Of course, of those, many are abandoned and most are rarely updated. Nevertheless, the vast breadth of the blogosphere is undeniable.

Whether it be a personal (or not so personal) diary, a social commentary on celebrities, or even a roundup of the day’s weather, a blog can be about absolutely anything. Being both public and private, as Lovink remarked in Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture (Lovink, 2007: 2), Blogs are inherently oxymoronic. On the one hand, the blogosphere is an immense network which broadcasts your every post to anyone in the world with access to the internet. Everything you write is available to be seen by anyone else on earth, and you are, in essence, writing for the widest audience imaginable.

On the other hand, it is this very vastness which makes a blog private, creating the same kind of comfortable anonymity as one would feel heckling a performer from the safety of a large crowd. In a world where every man and his dog has an opinion, the clamour of voices can overwhelm the individual, which, while disheartening for some, can provide a level of freedom of expression for others.

When Lovink speaks of ‘manag[ing] the self’, as he does in the above quote (Lovink, 2007: 28), he refers “as much to the need to structure one’s life, to clear up the mess, to master the immense flows of information, as to PR and promotion of Ich AG, as it is called in crisis-ridden Germany” (Lovink, 2007: 28).  Lovink’s ideas on self-promotion through blogs are based on his belief that “blogs are part of a wider culture that fabricates celebrity on every possible level” (Lovink, 2007: 28). Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture was first published in August 2007, nearly four years ago. And when dealing with something as ever-changing as the internet, four years may as well be four decades. Much of what Lovink argues is still relevant, however his ideas on blogs as self promotion seem outdated. Lovink refers to ‘A-listers’ such as Joi Ito and seems to believe that most people enter blogging in the hope of becoming an A-lister themselves. While it’s true that celebrity culture is as prevalent as ever, the increased popularity of blogs has seen a shift away from the political/citizen-journalism style reporting aimed at being the ‘next big thing’ to a personal self-reflection eclipsing even Lovink’s ideas of self-management.

Lovink sees blogs as ‘decay’, stating that “instead of time and again presenting blog entries as self-promotion, we should interpret them as decadent artifacts that remotely dismantle the mighty and seductive power of the broadcast media” (Lovink, 2007: 17). However rather than broadcasting the news free and uninhibited by political constraints, blogs rarely have the research or the facts to publish breaking news articles, and instead merely provide a commentary on the news as distributed by the mainstream media, adding to the theatre of public opinion. For all intents and purposes, the “mighty and seductive power of the broadcast media” is safe. Most blogs out there at the moment are not a nihilistic attack of the establishment.

Lovink’s comment that “blogs are primarily used as a tool to manage the self” is as true as ever, although where Lovink sees it as a negative, I see it as a positive way of creating our own identity, a way of formulating our own opinions and beliefs in a world full of contradictory arguments. Blogs can be therapeutic, a way of working through a traumatic event, such as the blog Faith, Hope, and Loving Audrey, which deals with the ongoing pain of losing a newborn. Blogs don’t have to be about commercialisation, forcing opinions, or challenging news media, as author Michelle writes; I blog to keep record of my journey for myself, a journal of sorts. In doing so I hope that other baby loss moms or those affected by a similar loss find some encouragement and comfort that we are not alone in our pain. Most often, however, blogs, like surreallis, are just a way for us to express ourselves, to share our favourite music and TV shows, to wax lyrically about our favourite actors and actresses, and to create a space where we can be whoever we want to be.

So yes, blogs are primarily used to manage the self, in both the most egocentric and unassuming way possible. However while Lovink sees that as their downfall, I see it as their future, an assurance of versatility, and a new revolution in blog culture.

References:

Lovink, Geert. ‘Blogging: The Nihilist Impulse’, in Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture. 2007. London, Routledge, pp.1-38.