MotherPie

MotherPie Blog Study: Introduction

    Female/Mom Blogging: Issues of Identity,
    Relations and Play

     Study completed December 2006

 

Note: Following the trend in changing the way researchers communicate, rather than publishing the study of female bloggers in a peer-reviewed journal, I have decided to publish on the MotherPie site in small bites and when completed, publish the study as a whole online as part of the open access movement.   Also please note that the intent was to study female blogs with a subset on mom blogs but the majority of respondents were overwhelmingly mothers, whether they type themselves as "mom bloggers" or just female bloggers who are mothers as well...  The research and theories were developed and much of the paper as presented here was presented for the final project and deeper analyzation of data has come this spring.  The paper probably needs to be reworked as it needs to be less 'mom blog' and more just bloggers that might or might not have children with the majority being female.   There is lots of fodder for further study.  Thanks to everyone who helped participate and add comments and share links to this material. ;)

        This study in female blogging and the identity, social structure and motivations of bloggers,  was made as a final project for a Media Studies graduate class in Digital Media Theory.

                                                    Introduction

        Because the influx of women into the blogosphere has been fairly recent, few studies have been made of women bloggers and in particular, the sub-genre of mom bloggers.  The purpose of this study was to study the trends in blogging, and to study in-depth female attitudes and blogging participation activity in general with a sub-focus on blogging by mothers.  Of particular emphasis in this study were the motivations and trends for blogging, theoretical  issues of identity and privacy, commodification/economics, and the new medium of blogging as it relates to the self in technical presentation.
        The word “blog” became Merriam-Webster Online’s word of the year in 2004. There were 7.8 million blogs in March of 2005, 14.2 million by July 2005, according to Technorati Founder David Sifrey's State of the Blogosphere, and in August 2006, Sifrey reported that the blogosphere was 100 times bigger than it was three years ago -- a total of 50 million by July 2006 with 35% of the postings in English.
        The study involved a blog survey posted online via primarily female bloggers and was promoted with announcements on female blog sites such as BlogHer and emails with links sent to female bloggers as well as mom bloggers with the intention of reaching this particular audience.  The survey ran from November 7 through December 7, 2006. A total of 555 respondents participated in the study. Additionally, the contents of female blogs  (with the majority being "mommy blogs") were studied from mid-October through December 7 for analysis and open ended questions on the survey produced additional research material.
        The results of this study offer profound and intriguing trends and developments in this particular subgroup that can potentially change not only women and mothers, but the way in which they perceive themselves and become influential in impacting the world around them.  When analyzing the blog contents for this study, only blogs that allowed for interaction in comments and blogs that allowed for contact with the author were considered.   The interactive attention was significant for two-way communications and the theories that relate to communication, relationships and social spaces.
       This study was female-centric with a special market sub-niche of mothers. The majority of the respondents were parents (70%) with 64% being females with children.  Only 2% were males without children. Females without children comprised 27% of respondents. 

Next: Mom Bloggers: Intensively Engaged in the Blogosphere

  8 + ways for

Better Days

Easy Breezy

1.  Look for three things to appreciate each day.  Write them down if need be.

2. Tell someone you love them and show it by your actions.

3. Take a walk.

4. Talk to a friend.

5. Eat whole foods.

6. Do something to make someplace (or someone) better because you've been there.

7. Let go of one thing.

8. Turn off the t.v.

New Year MotherPie Cheers!

Recipe for a Happy Marriage...

The Recipe for a Happy Marriage, has been in our kitchen from the first day of our marriage.  The framed gift, hand made with beautiful calligraphy, was one of my favorite gifts from a Recipe Shower.

I've always been reminded of the wisdom contained therein.  It is faded and yellowed after 26 years.  I took it out to photograph it for this post and lo-and-behold there are three exact copies on parchment paper behind the original.  One for each of my children. What a pleasant surprise ready to gift to my children upon their marriages (or grandchildren - who knows).

Recipe for a Happy Marriage

1 C. of consideration                            1 generous dash of cooperation   
1 C. of courtesy                                       3 t. of pure extract "I am sorry"
2 C. of flattery carefully concealed    1 C. of contentment
1 gallon of faith in God                         1 C. each of confidence and encouragement
       and each other                                            1 large or several small hobbies
2 C. full of praise                                                2 children at least
1 small pinch of in-laws                             1 C. blindness to each other's faults
1 reasonable budget                              

Flavor with frequent portions of recreation and a dash of happy memories.  Stir well and remove any specks of jealously, temper or criticism.  Sweeten well with generous portions of love and keep warm with a steady flame of devotion.  Never serve with a cold shoulder or hot tongue.

I do believe that love and appreciation for what we receive is a bond that is renewed over the breaking of bread.  The joy of cooking, the pleasure of eating, the comfort of a good marriage.

This is more than a dish like spinach (something you eat it because it is good for you).  It is soul food.

How to Put a Crease in Jeans...

This is a must-read if you want to be authentically western in your blue jeans, courtesy of a sixth-generation Texan whose ancestors included a Texas Ranger/Territorial Marshall.

If you don't know this and think you are being cool, you might just want to know this -- if nothing else, just for the sake of knowing.

At minimum don't wear creased jeans with anything other than boots.

Here's what you need to know if you want to be real...

Ramble Redux: for the New Media-Challenged...

MotherPie's email, virtual and real friends have requested a little help with all of this new media stuff.  Upcoming: a list of all the MotherPie regular reads, including a bunch of links to online media sites, blogging mommies, fun sites, international sites, etc. ad nauseum.

But for now, here are links that friends have requested:

• How to Read a Blog for Women Over 30 (men, too, you can read this!!!) All apologies for making this MotherPie-centric but it's the only way to walk readers through this...
• MotherPie is a Firefox Fan -- if you are not accessing your online information through the free Firefox browser, you are way behind and need to get up to speed! Note: Firefox released its latest version on 7/12.  Kinks are always there for new versions... here's a review.
• Mindlessness and Information Overload --  This big shift to new media is the biggest thing since Guteberg invented the printing press.  Go with the flow, not against it.

New media online-reading literacy cheers! It's all tickety-boo and just a heck of a lot of fun for this Media Studies graduate student/mama/journalist.  (Yes, our tuition bills are horrendous.) 

Attention! Attention is the New Thing...

Attention is the machine of the new economy.  Michael H. Goldhaber's 1997 speech, The Attention Economy and the Net, presented to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government's "Economics of Digital Information Conference"  has been listed as one of the top most-read papers in March 2006 on the peer-reviewed journal site, First Monday.  Goldhaber's first book was Reinventing Technology and his most recent book, The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business, was published in 2002 by the Harvard Business School Press. 

Linda Stone first coined the term Continuous Partial Attention (CPA) and O'Reilly's Nathan Torkington gives a good history of it here and he notes this from her talk: "Now we're over-stimulated, over-wound, unfulfilled...Attention is dynamic, and there are sociocultural influences that push us to pay attention one way or another.  Our use of attention and how it evolves is culturally determined." 

Read Georg Franck's Essay on Science and Society: Scientific Communication - a Vanity Fair? to see how attention is a mode of payment for scientists and thinkers.  Barry Schwartz,  Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College, wrote The Paradox of Choice, Why More Is Less.  More relevant reading? 2000 Nobel Prize Winner Eric R. Kandel's just-published book, In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind, is already ranked #269 on Amazon.  Newsweek's technology writer Steven Levy wrote recently about Stone and the attention required to be a "digital node" and the "Attention Economy" theme of this spring's emerging Technology Conference in San Diego in terms of "digital distraction."

Joi Ito discussed this with Stone and wrote about it in terms of the difference between loss-less and lossy compression technology. "The trick is to get a picture of what is going on from a perspective that makes sense for you in a format that compresses well for you," he wrote.

Pam and Pierre Omidyar, founder of e-bay, are supporters of the non-profit AttentionTrust.org. Here is the wiki  and here is the blog.   The basic principle is that you control and own what you pay attention to...your "data" in otherwords.  It sounds like a move in the right direction but when I get to this part about how the services work, it is a little more than my CPA can deal with. 

Clay Shirky is on the Board as is Seth Goldstein. Golstein wrote very recently about attention and the gold potential of harnessing/hooking the looks. Board member Nick Bradbury can share our pain with Dell Hell experiences. Ed Batista is also on the board and if you read about his writings on leadership (16th century ideas respun to modern theories), it will make you want to keep up with this organization.

Steve Gillmor writes about attention and links and the economic ripples here. Nicholas Carr writes about it in Selling ourselves. LeverageBlog writes about it and more blogging here. 

Pay attention. Pay attention. Pay attention.

5/11 Update:  Ed Batista (full note in comments) has corrected this information to note that the co-founders of AttentionTrust.org were Steve Gillmor and Seth Goldstein.  The Omidyar Network has made a grant to support AttentionTrust.  The copy above has been changed to note the Omidyar support rather than list them as founders.  Thanks, Ed.

MotherPie's Recommend: Specific Flu and Family Plans...

When May's Harvard Business Review's special report on Preparing for a Pandemic asks "What should we do or not do?" it spurred thinking about this issue in terms of families and to consider  the threat factually rather than fearfully. 

Three times in the past century a new influenza hit with the flu of 1918/19 being the worst with about 40 million deaths (estimated American deaths were ten times as many as those killed in action in WWI).  Other years were 1957 and 1968 -- not recent enough to be fresh in our memories for prevention and planning, but the '68/'69 flu was least severe and caused 34,000 US deaths.  The HBR article notes that unlike SARS, a new flu strain may be harder to contain by quarantine if patients are infected before showing signs of illness (similar to chickenpox contagion/transmission).  It is not possible to make vaccines in advance so what should mothers and families do for prevention, avoidance, and preparation? Knowing steps for hygiene and evacuation/sick leave to minimize contagion are important steps.

According to Bloomberg, scientists are counting on a slowdown as peak transmissions are in the winter months but now might be the time to know where resources are and to formulate your own family ideas for planning.  The World Health Organiztion (WHO) has general bird flu information here but HBR's special report listed The Flu Wiki as a good source and it has two sites that you might start with: What do I need to know? and Personal and Family Preparedness as up to 30% of your neighbors and co-workers may become ill. 

MotherPie recommends that you bookmark the Flu Wiki link on Personal Preparedness to have it handy and to flip through all the links on this last site so that you have a general idea of what to do (it lists topics such as  food safety and storage, needs for six months of quarantine, coping, medical therapy and alternative medicine therapies).  State and local information through the CDC is provided at this site (another site to note/bookmark).  More information is here at the PandemicFlu.gov site.  A Pandemic Influenza Planning Guide for Individuals and Families is here (pdf).  Another site for information and ordering products like masks, here although their masks are $250?  Wouldn't cheaper masks work?  Other information here, and a page you might print in case you only have 24 hours to prepare here or here for a complete list of supplies for six months preparedness.

Three blogs that provide good bird flu information: Bird flu, H5N1, and greenhammer.

Fear is emotional; knowledge is practical.  Know what you need to know, plan for what you can and don't live in fear but in security that you have done what you can...just in case.

With a Boat Named Amnesia, Who Could Forget? Enron Spinron.

Enron tilted it all. It is beyond postmodern.  And now it is beyond the personal stories of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling and the jury will decide. Enron begot SOX.* Enron might begat another era, and symbolize one that comes from sitting straight rather than tilting back ready to go-go-go.   The tilted story of Enron might be the final bookend to the specific era of American Postmodernism which, when coupled with the current administration, may come to be seen as penultimate institutions of truth-as-we-create it, top-down. 

Maybe the new online media will be the combustion engine for the shift, the abettor in the drive to deconstruct the spin, the de-twisticator for truth. Especially for things that are taboo in the MSM.  Like voting irregularities.

Or the logo might come to be seen as the "E" for "Everything Goes."  Who knows.  MotherPie on Postmodernism and Enron here.  Historical truth will tell the meaning with its own twist, depending on the times.

When Ken Lay can't remember a lot of details and his yacht was named Amnesia, it makes one think.   Former President Bill Clinton said it well when he put it all to the semantics of minutia.  What is "Is" determines what was "Was." And when all is said and done and the story becomes a once-upon-a-time, what will the moral of the story be?   

Well, from a mother, it makes one wonder if Enron might not have fallen apart as it did had  Skilling stayed married to Sue.

More Enron Tilts:
"The verdict could turn on the defendants' words," says the sub-head of WaPo's trial wrap-up today by Carrie Johnson.  It was fun and a conversation to blog about it, says WaPo's Frank Ahrens in his Enron Trial blog.  "Sorry Excuses for Human Beings," blog headline here.
Political logo humor here.  Enron film review here. Chron.com on the Fall of Enron.
*Sarbanes-Oxley, the legislation requiring more financial disclosure and transparency has become a real headache for corporations.   

Planting Seeds of Possibility in Young Minds...

Adult "others" who take the time to know a child and to share insights, thoughts or encouragements, can be extremely influential in shaping the identity of the child and in opening up possible paths, opportunities and potential that otherwise might remain untapped.  The power of possibilities, when reflected to a child in context of a child's aptitudes, can open the world, literally.

Lynne Cox was honored with a toast by Mikhail Gorbachev for her role in opening up the Soviet Union's borders after 38 years of being closed.  As a nine-year old girl, swimming outside alone for hours on a cold stormy day, the mother of the fastest girl on the swim team told her that she might someday swim the English Channel.   What a seed to plant!  Five years later her swim coach thought she might find an opportunity with ocean distance swim challenges rather than in her California swim team pool.  After being part of the first group of kids to swim the Catalina Channel (in just over 12 hours), the next day the 14 year-old remembered the little seed planted years earlier and realized she could pursue the dream of swimming the English Channel. 

At 15 she broke the world record for swimming the English Channel, beating the men's record by 20 minutes.  Another swimmer beat her record six weeks later and she returned and broke the new record by 20 minutes.  She didn't stop thinking about what she could do with her talents after breaking two world records while still in high school.  The idea of how to live her life imagining and embracing with confidence possibilities way beyond what others would envision for her was ingrained and she has continued to break boundaries and barriers and create unity in the process. She might not have had such a life, made such an impact on individuals and countries, nor realized all that might be possible just for the thinking of it had not two significant adults noted what possibilities might be made with her aptitudes.  She was fortunate in having parents who not only paid attention when she dreamed about her possibilities, but supported her in realizing them.

She has not stopped thinking of how she can use her talents and gifts to make a difference in this world. What she has done is an inspiration and you can read about it here and here, or read about the details of her amazing accomplishments in her book, Swimming to Antarctica. Little did that mother know that when she took the time to notice the uniqueness of another child and what might be made of a set of talents, that her comment as a seed would someday grow to be the persistent vine of an idea that helped tear down the walls of the Cold War. 

How incredible is the power of others in shaping the lives of our children.  Little seeds planted in little minds by caring others... 

Va-Va Vooms, Skilling, Enron and Spin...

Tossing out the first wife is like tossing the baby out with the bathwater, imho.  Read about what WaPo's Frank Ahrens writes about Jeff Skilling's first wife Sue Lowe and Skilling's trade-up wife, Va-Va-Voom Enron fellow-employee Rebecca Carter.  Typical: Sue cared about kids and family (hence: second wives chase the bank balance)? 

Best coverage on Skilling trial: Skilling Time at Fortune magazine (called Skilling Scores Some Points in the online version) by Bethany McClean and Peter Elkind.  MotherPie particularly likes this as it follows the postmodern theme of creating the narrative as MotherPie wrote here on What is "Is"? Enron... and how Enron tilted everything.

The WashingtonPost.com is doing a good job of providing deeper and richer background information for the Enron trial -- a good example of how the new online organizations can make the online environments work.  Go here for WaPo's special reports on the Enron Trial. Their latest article on the Enron Trial... which words to use and how...  creating the perspective...  Notice the headline!  All in the semantics.

Fortune, too, is providing richer, deeper content online to make information and news more contextual and relevant.  Here is their added-value for richer online content for the Enron saga.

Any doubts as to why the move to online news is happening so fast?  Does your local paper give you this?  The postmodern trial of stunning relevance and significance.

Update: Interesting blog commentary -- Witch, Lay the Wind Blows and VaVaVoom seated in the "pole position" and "sucking on mints"????? The latter link has a great day-by-day summary of the trial, fyi.

Update: Spin and the Court of Public Opinion on Harvard's Larry Summers and thinking outloud.  Ah.  Everything is so scripted!

5/19 Update: MotherPie wonders if Enron might not have crashed had Skilling stayed married to Sue  in With a  Boat Named Amnesia, Who Could Forget. Enron, Spinron.