We will spend the first part of Tuesday's (1/29) class discussing the results of your group analysis of genres from Thursday, before discussing what Rettberg and Miller/Shepherd argue about blogs as genre. Their articles are not difficult, but they are lengthy because they are building theory based on an analysis of different case studies. Please give yourselves time to read thoughtfully for their claims and examples, but also make note of places where their claims may rub against or conflict with how you understand "blogging" or "citizen journalism." Our goal will be to recognize the take-away concepts in each article, and to consider the possibilities and limitations of those concepts.
Here are some discussion questions that may help you read in advance of Tuesday's class:
- How does Miller and Shepherd's discussion of genre reflect other genre theories you may have studied, in English, EWM, or media studies classes? Or, if you're new to genre theory, then try to unpack the quote by Berkenkotter and Huckin that they use in the third paragraph of their article. In a way, that quote -- and that paragraph -- holds the genealogy of Miller and Shepherd's genre theory. Do you think the assumptions they make about genre generally hold up when applied to blogs?
- What are some of the reasons Miller and Shepherd give for studying the blog as a genre? Their overarching claim seems to be that blogs both support and disrupt the distinction between public and private, but there are probably other reasons as well.
- What is "kairos" in their argument? How is it significant? What does it mean that subjectivity is a product of time and place, formed in interaction with a kairos (second paragraph in final section of the article)?
- In a way, Rettberg applies genre analysis to three case studies (Dooce.com, Kottke.org, dailykos.com) in order to come up with sub genres, or categories within the blog genre. How does she determine each sub genre? How do her sub genres act like -- or not act like -- Miller and Shepherd's concept of genre? Do you think they have the same expectations of genre?
- Consider Liebling's 1960 statement about free speech, or free press (Rettberg quotes it in the beginning of her chapter on "Citizen Journalism"). Unpack it, for its assumptions and implications. Why do you think Rettberg opens her chapter with it? Does it apply today?
- What do you see as the principal justifications or main reasons why Rettberg compares the "blogger" to a "citizen journalist"? And then, what are the main reasons or principal justifications for why this could be a tricky comparison? If it helps, try answer this question by using one of the specific examples Rettberg provides, e.g., Columbine, Baghdad, etc.
- What is "symbiosis" in Rettberg's argument? How is it significant?
Enjoy the readings!
-Prof. Graban
The quotes tells us that whoever holds access to the press, or being published, is the specific story that is put out there and shared with the public. This quote shows the dated, and much thicker, line that existed between the reader/writer and journalist. Now, there is a wider and more commonplace access to a public forum. The blogger can self-publish and potentially be seen as a reliable and similar source to journalists today.
ReplyDeleteBloggers have the possibility of the “everyday perspective,” and “chance witnessing events first-hand.” Because journalists are assigned a story after the event has occurred, Bloggers can have the upper hand in their unique vantage point. This could be a tricky comparison because the “truth factor” varies more greatly among bloggers. Journalists have to fact check and go through an extensive editing process whereas bloggers are mostly self-edited and immediately published.
Symbiosis is the idea of having a more closely-nit collective intelligence. Immediacy is an important concept to consider with this term and the blog. We can read immediate responses between individuals concerning a topic and receive immediate updated posts. When we think of the term Symbiosis such ideas that come to mind are – concepts feeding off of each other in some way – helping each other/affecting each other. We believe this can accurately describe the symbiotic relationship between the blog and media, in that even most journalists today have their own personal blogs today.
Brittany Morrill
She'kia Morant
Nick Pelton
(Questions 5-7)
Delete1. We think their assumptions generally hold for blogs because blogs can be viewed as a new development from the traditional genre of journalism. The new environment of the Internet has allowed for innovative decorum of new conversations, which make up the different sub-genres that Rettberg addresses in her article.
ReplyDelete2. Mediated voyeurism and mediated exhibitionism are two other reasons behind the urge to study blogs, because these are reasons why blogging has become so popular. Bloggers want to validate their “selves” while also building a community of discourse. Bloggers want confirmation that their beliefs fit the with social norms.
3. Kairos in their argument is how the blog functions within the environment of the Internet, the medium. It is significant because studying the kairos of blogs allows us to understand the rhetorical purpose behind its genre.
Joey, Catalina, and Lindsey
2. Miller and Shepherd felt that “when a type of discourse or communicative action acquires a common name within a given context or community, that’s a good sign it is functioning as a genre”. As a new rhetorical opportunity presented itself through the use of the blog, its availability and accessibility gained a large audience and pool of users. With a common format and central features found among many blogs, these structures helped to define the blog as a new genre.
ReplyDelete3. Kairos is thought to be rhetorical action “fitting” within its cultural environment, and accredited this cultural moment to the events of the 1990’s. With the blurring of what is considered public and private after the Clinton campaign, MTV’s The Real World, and the growing popularity of computers and the internet, the blog was created to fit into this “new rhetorical possibility”. It is significant because it “unsettled boundaries between public and private” and as a product of time and place, was influenced by the events of the decade.
4. Blogs are easy to define formally, with common elements found across all three case studies like the post, time stamps, and blog roll. However, they are harder to define by content. She applies subgenres as carrying specific set limitations that help define each type or style of blog. Her concept of subgenre has more variances, exceptions and crossovers acknowledged than Miller and Shepherd’s definition. They have the same expectation of how the blog might function as a genre, but Rettburg furthers this idea by breaking it down further into smaller, more specific subgenres.
Jenn Gaudreau
Vanessa Mota
2. On a superficial level, blogging has become a rapidly growing phenomenon on the Web. However, by analyzing the nature of blogs, Miller and Shepherd hope to answer three questions regarding the type of discourse it engages and how this “communicative action acquires a common name within a given context or community” (1). Between the public and private spheres, blogs toe the line of both of these realms. Oftentimes, private matters are made public in the case of Rettberg’s of Dooce.com. Miller and Shepherd reference the merging of the private and public as a “pragmatic action” in which two themes emerge: “self-expression and community development” (6-7). By putting their private lives and thoughts public, bloggers are able to create an external response, though they may not have even intended to build a community from their own brand of digital catharsis.
ReplyDelete3. Miller and Shepherd describe kairos as “both the sense in which discourse is understood as fitting and timely – the way it observes propriety or decorum – and the way in which it can seize on the unique opportunity of a fleeting moment to create new rhetorical possibility” (2). In this definition, blogging is seen as more of a social action, which is applicable, given the title of the reading. Viewing blogging in this way creates a sense of activism in the genre of blogging. Posts and content could serve as “calls to action” in which issues are brought to light and a new rhetorical discourse emerges, whether in the form of discussion, debate, or a physical response. In terms of subjectivity, there’s a particular relevance with dealing with kairos. “New rhetorical possibilities,” we think, would be harder to achieve in reference to issues that are no longer current or relevant to our quality of life in this time and place.
4. Rettberg defines the three blogs as a personal diary, a filter blog, and a political blog based upon their content. In Miller and Shepherd’s article, as well as Rettberg’s, there are certain, specific conventions used to make up particular genres. The same can be said of subgenres. If you choose to write a political blog, there are constraints and affordances that are utilized. The content must obviously be political in nature. Furthermore, to be taken seriously as a political blog, your information sources must be credible. We think that both readings have the same expectations of genre, mainly through the use of conventions in defining blogs and their various subgenres, though Rettberg takes the concept of subgenres as more of a classification.
Amanda Diehl
Nate Rubin
Anneleise Sanchez
3. Kairos is socially perceived space-time. It is significant because it describes the sense in which a discourse is understood as fitting and the way in which it can seize a fleeting moment to create a new rhetorical possibility. Subjectivity is the product of place and time in the sense that it can always change from place to place and throughout time.
ReplyDelete4. If you can consider blogging a genre, sub genres are formed by content (diary-style, political, literary, fashion). Each sub genre has limitations and certain exceptions, and some sub genres can be mixed together (such as a diary-style fashion blog). Miller and Shepherd believe that a genre functions when a discourse acquires a common name within a community, such as when you post a diary-style discourse online, it is automatically named a blog.
5. You can only have free press if you control the press, but you control your own free speech. As for the press, there will always be an editor who can change what you've written or strike it out altogether, whereas a personal blog will not be edited by others so you have the freedom to write whatever you wish. Rettberg probably opened this chapter with this quote because a blogger is almost like a “citizen journalist,” and this quote marks the distinction between a career journalist and a citizen journalist. It is still relevant today.
Jordan Spina
Danae VanPortfliet
Brittany Stephens
4. Miller and Shepherd, in the article, Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog, define genre as something which is dependent on social activity. “When a type of discourse or communicative action acquires a common name within a given context of community” (Miller 1). They talk about Darwinian approach, or the approach of genre evolution, which is how genres are constructed only for the time of their publication. Rettberg, in her article, Blogging, defines three sub-genres of the blog. The personal blog was exemplified by “Dooce.com.” The filter blog was “Kottke.org.” The topic-driven blog was “dailykos.com.” She determines these subgenres by their subject matter. Rettberg describes in a stasis of cause how each blog came to occur from the original filter-free, list of links without commentary. Rettberg’s sub-genres respond to their original classification by seeking out new audiences. All blogs function with a sense of immediacy, and non-fiction writing. But the action of these blogs within the social sphere of the Internet are completely different. Rettberg and Miller/ Shepherd agree on the physical aspects of blogs but recognize their rhetorical discourse can range from an intrinsic personal function to an extrinsic linking of parts of the Internet.
ReplyDelete5. (See Annette)
6. A citizen journalist is an unpaid, on-the-scene witness of an event. A witness of the Virginia Tech shooting was contacted by a paid journalist to publish her blog postings. Rettberg realizes the ethical considerations of publishing private material. The “citizen journalist” is part of many associations which put the blogger as a public figure. It is tricky because there are legal identities between bloggers and journalists. The strange, new technology of self-publication, of immediate response, and digital connectivity allow uncensored reactions to real events. The “citizen journalist” can exist without boundaries, and is possibly one of the most extreme examples of private/ public intersection. Are “citizen journalists” a good emergence? Some believe the Internet is part of an invasion of privacy at the consent of the governed.
Erik Reed
Rachel Cushanick
Annette Hansford
5. “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”
ReplyDeleteThis quote strongly implies that true “freedom of the press” did not exist in 1960, meaning that the widespread publishing of certain topics or ideas just did not happen. Journalism and the media focused mainly on issues that were considered relevant and important (or sometimes “appropriate”) to the masses. Rettberg opens with this quote to bring about the question of whether blogging is journalism. The question is between the difference of subjective and objective truth. News is supposed to be objective. Blogs are definitely subjective. The argument, overlap, and confusion lies in whether subjective or objective sources are more reliable, offer deeper insights into a situation or event than the other. Today, this quote stands somewhat true in the sense of news that comes from traditional sources such as CNN. Blogs, however, give anyone with internet access the freedom to post about anything (not necessarily news or newsworthy topics).
Erik Reed
Rachel Cushanick
Annette Hansford
4. Rettberg determines the sub-genre based on the style of blogs individually. She suggest that blogs aren't genres, but mediums. Her overall conclusion is that a persons perspective determines the type of blog. Also she feels that society determines specific genres and the audience group blogs accordingly. This doesn't go against or towards Miller and Shephards ideas of what makes up a genre. Though they do have similar expectations.
ReplyDelete5. Rettberg starts the chapter with a Liebling's quote from 1960. This quote leads her into stating that media and legal restrictions hinder ideas and points of view of writers. Editorial policies and the talkback radio policies are both examples Rettberg gives. The assumption is that the internet and blogs have changed this. Giving the writer an unfiltered and raw voice. Making censorship a thing of the past. However, this isn't totally true. Just as there was censorship in the 1960's, there is censorship today. Not just anything can go on the internet without repercussions. Crimes are committed on the internet constantly and censorship is just a way to control that.
6. Rettberg believes that bloggers act in the same way, or play the same roll as, a journalist would. She even gives examples of how bloggers even receive the same legal protection as a journalist would, in regards to anonymity and rights. The first that comes to mind is the Apple Company suing 'John Does' who were bloggers who refused to give up their sources. This is tricky because bloggers do not hold the position as a job, nor do they get payed for their work (unless it's a company who runs the blog). So it is unclear whether or not they should get the same rights as their journalistic counterparts.
Alexander Snider
Donovan Todd
4. The three sub genres are personal blogs, topic-driven blogs, and filter blogs. To determine sub genres, she finds similarities among the things in the genre to condense them into smaller categories. Rettburg and Miller/Shepherd differ on their concepts of blogs. Miller/Shepherd states that genres are socially constructed while Rettburg believes the genres and sub genres are connected through similarities. While their definitions are different, they have similar expectations of a genre. They would both call the same thing a blog. The road to calling something a genre is different but yields the same expectations.
ReplyDelete5. Blogs allow for a wider freedom of speech. When an author sends an article or book into a publisher, it is now up to the publisher to edit, censor, and design it. On a blog, an author is his/her own editor. Also, blogs allow for the everyday person to get their ideas out to a wider audience than doesn't just include their friends and family.
6. A blogger is a citizen journalist because lots of the time, readers look to bloggers with the same respect as they look at journalists. Readers also give blogger's words the same reliability (if it is a reliable blog and not fake like the woman with cancer one). Lots of people get their information from blogs just as much as they get info from the news, talk shows, etc. However, this is definitely a tricky comparison because giving a blogger the same credibility as a journalist can lead to problems. An everyday blogger doesn't go through the extensive fact-checking and editing that goes into a news story. Bloggers are open to more mistakes. On the other hand, the fact that a blogger has his own voice and his words are obviously biased gives him more credibility in some ways. In the Baghdad example, the blogger got his credibility from the fact that he was a blogger, not a journalist. His readers trusted his voice more because it wasn't edited.
Crookedtimber.org: Being a ball boy isn't only about being a ball boy but about intimidating the other side. Personal blogs, according to Rettburg,are daily accounts of life.
-Katherine, Chris, Joseph, Cassandra
(I'm posting for Rachel Y., Corey, and Tyler:)
ReplyDelete5. Leibling states that “freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” This statement was issued in the 1960's, when the internet (nonetheless blogs) was nonexistant. In that time, the press was only available to those people who wrote for newspaper, journals, or were able to broadcast. This meant that very few people were able to have their voices heard, and that the 'freedom' of press was not exactly free to everyone. To further limit this freedom, what was published was under the scrutiny of advertisers and editors. Nowadays, the availability of the internet and free blog hosting services has let this freedom grow to most of the literate, first world society. This creates a shift in the context for Leibling's statement; while it is still applicable and relevant. Rettberg utilizes this quote not only to show how the new meaning of “freedom of press” has changed over time, but to show how significant this new availability of press to the public has on the meaning of 'journalism.'
6. “Details in a way that many professional journalists do not have the time for. In these cases, blogs fulfill much the same function journalists do” (Rettberg, 86). Bloggers can be seen an citizen journalists because they both fufill similar roles- in fact, Rettberg states that bloggers can even research their information and sources more deeply than do professional journalists and can provide a deeper, first-hand insight. This can be a tricky comparison when legality is thrown into the mix, mostly because journalists hold the ability to keep their sources anonymous while bloggers may not have that ability. There is also friction created when blogging and journalism come to a head, much like during the Columbine tragedy. A blogger who experienced the shooting was thrust into the journalistic limelight, and subsequently journalists were seen an manipulative and deceitful. Blogging has the ability to change how we see journalism, in contrast to how journalism created a need for blogging.
7. The symbiosis in Rettberg's argument in the fact that bloggers depend upon journalists, and journalists depends upon blogs. As blogs become a bigger and bigger genre, they become fodder for journalism. Many journalists keep their own blogs- recognizing the need of the personality of the blog. Furthermore, many people who write blogs then gain the credibility of a journalist (even writing for newspapers and journals). Blogging as a medium becomes further blurred with journalism, as a result.
-Rachel Young
-Corey Smith
-Tyler Avery