Blog readers research
Posted on March 20th, 2008, under Research, Teaching, Web(log) Stuff
Yesterday I met with an Honours student who wants to write her thesis on non-commenting blog readers. Specifically, she’s trying to explore and understand whether long-term blog readers develop a ‘para-social’ relationship to their favoured blogger, even when they may not participate on the blog itself - how readers form attachments to particular writers and why.
So often people writing on blogging are bloggers themselves, and for that reason can’t necessarily appreciate the motivations of ‘lurkers’. Even to use the word ‘lurker’ already implies certain things (just like the term ‘leech’ when opposed to ’seeder’). It shuts down the possibility that there are a whole range of pleasures and uses and contingencies surrounding blogging consumption that take place off-screen, eluding capture by text or archive. I know that some people would suggest that the format of blogging software is an integral dimension to why commenting can appear difficult (as opposed to conversation threads on LJ, for instance, or because of the overall temporality of blogging/posting culture). But reciprocity was supposedly an important founding ethic for blogging, and this is an economy which is quite different again from the refrain of participation that enthusiasts champion as the promise of participatory media. How then to reflect the fact that blogging is for many people still a broadcast medium, with communication being a one-way transaction? Surely this is one of the great empirical problems blogging research should address?
I have no idea how many people read what I blog, for example, and find it funny when wanna-be A-Listers spruik how many readers they have (as if they could know exactly, and as if metrics somehow proves that a) blogging and b) being read is inherently affirmative). Anyway, yesterday I couldn’t offer any specific recommendations for writing in this area, beyond the relevance and limitations of certain fan studies approaches and perhaps the notion of mundane celebrity. Of course it might sound like a trick question to find out who reads this blog, but I thought it might be worth asking whether anyone can share what’s been written on these issues already? Or those of you who do read this, or other blogs regularly, would you be willing to say why in a comment?
On March 20th, 2008 at 2:12 pm, Nick Caldwell said:
The audience for spruiking of readership numbers is probably advertisers rather than readers/other bloggers.
I can’t point to any specific resources right now, but I suspect that you could find a bit of discussion about the sociology of USENET discussion lurking; USENET’s forms and tropes having greatly influenced the blogging practices of the most influential bloggers.
On March 20th, 2008 at 3:30 pm, Mark Bahnisch said:
Your student might want to ask the LP Facebook group members - if she/he is on FB. I was surprised when we set it up that so many people who aren’t commenters joined - which suggests there is a ‘para-social’ relationship. But I don’t know of anything written about this.
FWIW, I’ve got a couple of friends who never comment on blogs but have very strong views about which blogs they like and dislike and one who is often directing my attention to comments threads which she reads rather than participates in.
On March 20th, 2008 at 6:20 pm, glen said:
isn’t there a difference in the lurker *identity* between lurking as an action rather than a social category or something. lurking should not be seen as a ‘lack of commenting’ it has its own positivity.
i read the feeds from some blogs which require accounts to comment and for which i do not have an account. they are normally really big blogs or those written by quasi-celebrities. I read them to keep in touch with what’s going on in a particular niche field or someone’s career, etc.
however i am not a ‘lurker’ in the sense of not commenting on any blogs at all.
perhaps another way to frame this point is to ask, is there such a thing as a pure lurker? someone who does not comment on anything? what is the nature of ‘not commenting’? for example there is not participating online, but i have had people discuss my blog with me irl, etc.
the ecology of the blogosphere enables lurking/commenting action for different blogs, lurk here, comment there.
hence, i suggest the *identity* of the lurker is problematic.
On March 21st, 2008 at 10:40 am, melgregg said:
Nick is surely right to emphasise the importance of USENET culture in setting precedents for blogging practices, including lurking. Yet this has different historical and discursive conditions than blogging does now. The latter being more mainstream, for starters. What remains true in each case is that there is a lacking vocabulary for silence as productive or positive, something that avoids the connotations of voyeurism or leeching and is more about personal preference, taste and the will to ‘broadcast oneself’ within particular contexts.
I didn’t think of my own work the other day but maybe the student is trying to show how a writerly voice with a unique signature generates productive effects. Her challenge is a methodological one, really, to show how these effects manifest beyond the screen.
The term ‘para-social’ also has a more specific meaning than simply the relationships that might occur in addition to what happens on-blog. Originally coming from television studies, it describes the close relationship fans develop with particular characters and stars as a result of devoted viewing (it also became a favoured explanation for the response to the death of Princess Diana). Which is not to say that LP might not have some of those - indeed it seems to me almost inherent to the nature of punditry and political blogging that writers cultivate a quasi-celebrity authorial persona to ensure ongoing readership. Yet to my mind this takes place at a level somewhat removed from the more mundane intimacy of the bulk of blogs - particularly microblogging and journaling practices that occur across a range of networking platforms - that don’t strive to perform a fourth estate function.
And this is what attracts me to the project idea. What makes someone’s voice compelling enough that you would want them to be part of your everyday life? Especially if you don’t ultimately strive to interact with them in order for that presence to be pleasurable?
On March 25th, 2008 at 2:03 pm, adam muir said:
On reflecting on my own blog lurking I would have to say that the genre or type of blog influences the kinds of interaction. News blogs don’t seem like places to comment, but following the blogs of other researchers whose work you like is a good place to create a sense of community (especially in an RHD context where you may be new to an academic discipline). It’s like standing on the front doorstep and checking out the neighbourhood (to paraphrase something danah boyd once said about SNSs). The community-by-commonality is a long-standing trope in internet studies (there’s a bunch of stuff in the AoIR email list archives on lurking, as you might be aware) as other commenters have already noted, but is a good place to begin but obviously, as Mel already mentioned, audiences for networked-media have changed so much since USENET days. In thinking about these things lurking has historically been a performative thing that is suggested to n00bs so they can check out what the norms are in a particular community (I think most mailing lists still suggest this when they say check out the archives when you join) and I suppose participate by copying the others already participating.
My understanding of blogging was originally from the “personal homepage” genre (personal broadcasts) of the late-90s, but was further shaped by being at livejournal in its infancy … as the first “host” for blogs where it was all about community. I think LJ is a special example where community-friendly elements were explicitly designed into the interface itself. It’s true that there is a kind of extended networked-community across the blogosphere between certain bloggers through comments, but there is something to be said about the social network side of LJ that distinguishes it from the wider blogosphere (I had a strange experience where a paper I was writing on the networks of LJ was rejected from an early publication about blogging based on the fact that LJ was not considered blogging and the social network side was not the methodology they were after, a fact that I thought was odd… only 2 years later friendster, myspace and facebook appeared, but I digress). So we shouldn’t underestimate the way that the software behind blogging sites is designed - because it does promote interaction, and some blog providers have got it wrong (myspace being one clear example of where it went awry, imho… but that’s for other reasons, since many features were just gaffer-taped onto the side of the original site without much thought).
I tend to comment less across all the blog networks where I am active these days (for reasons of other commitments mostly), but I appreciate many blogs still as a kind of personalised (in the sense of the unique voice of the author, not personalised as in customised) news feed. Being involved as reader creates a sense of community even if there isn’t the act of commenting. As Glen mentioned, I don’t think there is a negative connotation to lurking as such, in the strict blog-as-information-source way. We’ve only inherited the name “lurking” from usenet/IRC because there’s no other word for it. What other terms do we have for quiet / less-extroverted people in regular social settings? Wall-flowers?
I have a lingering feeling that much of the thinking in this area has the shadow of “online/offline” which is an increasingly-redundant dichotomy because these things are embedded in our everyday lives even in the most banal or benign ways. (In doing a class activity with first year students, some of whom were apprehensive bout talking to the person next to them, I referred to the excercise as a real life friends-add-request that you could remove after the tutorial was over… which seemed to resonate with them on some level beyond my obvious ploys for them to work with their peers).
Okay this is more of a post of it’s own than a comment so I won’t type any more here.
As a last point, RE: resources -
A quick look in my phd biblio reveals that Jennifer Preece has done a bunch of work on lurking. Also, isn’t Geert Lovink’s latest book (Zero Comments) about these themes? (I haven’t read it, as I am waiting to get it from the QUT library).
Good luck with finding an RA! (Shame I have too much work as it is, this sounds like a good project).
On March 25th, 2008 at 4:41 pm, melgregg said:
Thanks Adam, that’s really useful - and nice to have you comment!
I really agree with you about the banality of online/offline being important in all this… even though I am struggling to write about that myself at the moment, and think that it may not be quite so benign in the sense that it is only banal for a certain group of people.
Unfortunately I’d have to say that despite the title, Geert’s book doesn’t really address this stuff in detail, although I still like the way he has mastered the art of hardcopy snark.
On June 3rd, 2008 at 6:12 am, Leslie said:
Just encountered your blog — it’s great! As for lurking, I think it’s an important and very relevant research topic. I wonder if theories of voyeurism may help elucidate the pleasures derived from lurking — getting to “peek” at other lives without being seen. You’re right that the word “lurker” is itself revealing — it certainly has a negative connotation, but it is also somehow misses the mark in the sense that a lurker, in its understood meaning, is typically known by the dominant group. It also is rooted more in the haptic realm, implying a presence that is physically too close, whereas I think internet “lurking” has a more visual function to it. In fact, I think “voyeur” may be the more accurate term.
Anyways, I’m fascinated by media studies, but am just now dipping my toe into it. Thanks for this site!
On June 16th, 2008 at 8:23 pm, melgregg said:
Thanks to you Leslie. Great comments and nice to hear someone else talking about haptics, which is a growing interest of mine and my colleagues. Hope you’ll keep reading!