Female Blogging: Issues of Identity,
Relations and Play
note: This is the tenth and final in a series of the MotherPie Blog Study, following:
Introduction
Mom Bloggers: Intensively Engaged in the Blogosphere
Theories of Engaging, Immersing, Linking & Networking...
Blogging Motivations
The Commercialization of the Female Blogs
Social Theory and the Female Blog
Identity and the Self in Blogging
Relevant Feminist Theories
Theories of Attention and Engagement
Conclusion
This blog study was originally planned as a potential thesis project. There is certainly more fodder for study. The project was completed in December 06 for a grade in a New Media Theory class and then publicly published in a ten-part segment on this blog beginning in February 07.
The idea that the female blogosphere could become an alternative space
that might be a complete space or a total world or a substitute for the
real world might not be yet imaginable (as might be the alternative
reality of Second Life where 90 people this semester earned credit from
Harvard for attending classes in the virtual environment there).
However, as Frederic Jameson wrote about postmodernism, “… the
autonomous sphere of culture is rather to be imagined in terms of an
explosion: a prodigious expansion of culture throughout the social
realm, to the point at which everything in our social life – from
economic value and state power to practices and to the very structure
of the psyche itself….consistent with the previous diagnosis of a
society of the image or the simulacrum and a transformation of the
“real” into so many pseudoevents.(Jameson).
As I write this conclusion just prior to receiving my master's
degree in order to post a permanent online link, I think of the virtual
life and real life that continue (I addressed this in a MotherPie post on Webkins)
to create a bridge between play and real life. When I started this
project, I thought of the bridge metaphor as a link between the
identity created online and the reality of everyday living. It is a
bridge that can be crossed both ways at varying speeds. The bridge
remains the same only the identities on either side are fluid and
subject to change.
The bridge remains an apt visual, as well, for the idea that mothers
become a bridge into this world for their children, both physically and
metaphorically. The vast majority of the respondents to the study were
mothers so this could be a possible idea for further study -- comparing
the online lives of mothers versus females without children. It was my
thought, unstudied, that perhaps women with children, because of the
idea of bridging, were more adaptable and more quickly versatile in
managing and creating online identities. Certainly mothers tend to use
monikers and anonymous names in order to protect their children and
families and to create a boundary between public and private lives, as
they feel responsible for not only themselves and their identity but
also for the identity and boundaries of the private lives of those they
love and care for.
There remain possiblities to pursue further study with the women
who volunteered to participate in more studies on these issues.
However, due to time limitations, these will not be pursued at this
time.
Our collective American lives have been segmented and our present
culture has isolated and weakened the social and familial fabric. The
idea of reimagining lives and connections is a way of culturally and
societally redressing these vacuous results. People do respond to and
change as a result of their environments. The blogosphere, especially
the female blogosphere, is an answer to isolation mothers feel and the
need to connect to others that women need. Place is a social construct
and relationships between people and their surroundings and
environments is complex. While the physical environment is being
reimagined by architects and urban designers to correct the social
flaws of lifestyle design (Knox), women are taking advantage of the
opportunities online to create an alternative online virtual space for
alternative dioramas of their lives. Represented by the amount of time
these women are spending online, it is an important (and will stay
important) part of the daily fabric of lives.
Author Note: Thanks to all
the female and mom bloggers who participated in the November/December survey
and to those who volunteered to publicize the study and survey in their
blogs and via email and also volunteered to be available for further
study.
Here is the permanent link for the online publication of this study with bibliography and citations as well as charts and graphs.
Part II: Privacy &
Eyes Looking In:
