David, First, thanks for a very well thought out response. I particularly like responses that include references. Sorry I "vexed" you but things done in public are public. The news media, institutions, and the public have no restrictions as compared to researchers. Chances are, next time you look for a job, the hiring committee will look at your blogs and even your postings in the AOIR archives. The disclaimer was amusing. Most of us have changed our mind about something we once expressed. The fact our expression is now forever recorded and increasingly easy to find is something we, as academics, should be exploring. By the way, I tend to think of self-publishing, such as blogs, as the "fifth estate." The fifth estate is a fascinating area where thoughts and beliefs are exposed without *censorship.* Perhaps "censorship" is the wrong word and someone can provide a better one. I also considered "review." The Internet makes things a lot more public and will increasingly do so. Imagine what is going to happen when there is good face recognition software. There's a lot of pics and video out there that expose more than blogs. Like it or not, our lives are more recorded and more exposed. At least blogs are an intentional exposure even if regretted later. Academia should be researching available content not hiding our heads in the sand. The Internet provides many resources and we can be trusted to protect individuals. Academics tend to focus on the phenomena and not the individual. In example, an interesting article will focus on how a lot of people wrote about something they may now regret is public but will not identify those persons. Again, I make the point that it takes little skill to research any person's net history. This is a good time to make a point about academic writing. While the fifth estate is widely accessible on widely used search engines, academic content is not. It is a shame that our superior content reaches such a small audience but that is another topic. David, thanks again for your thoughts. It is obvious that you care. I look forward to reading your research. I hope that your ability to provide new understandings is not crippled by artificial lack of access to public information. Charlie Balch -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of David Brake Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 3:24 AM To: AoIR mailing list Subject: [Air-L] public/private and imagined blog audiences (I just couldn'tstop myself from posting) <snip> I am particularly vexed with the attitude exemplified by Charlie Balch's comment:
As a bottom line, if you post it on the net, it is public. The publisher might regret their post but that does not make it private. Yes, additional exposure might bring some greater harm to the poster but the poster has brought it upon themselves.
<snip> Gumbrecht, M. (2004) "Blogs as 'Protected Space'". in World Wide Web Conference, New York, p. 5, http://www.blogpulse.com/papers/ www2004gumbrecht.pdf Nardi, B., D. Schiano and M. Gumbrecht (2004) "Blogging as Social Activity, or, Would You Let 900 Million People Read Your Diary?" in CSCW, p. 11, http://home.comcast.net/~diane.schiano/CSCW04.Blog.pdf boyd, d. (2004) Broken Metaphors: Blogging as Liminal Practice Last accessed: 13 Dec 2004 Last updated: 12 Dec 2004 Address: http:// www.danah.org/papers/BrokenMetaphors.pdf. Viegas, F. (2005) "Bloggers' Expectations of Privacy and Accountability: An Initial Survey ", Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10 (3). http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue3/viegas.html Lenhart, A. and S. Fox (2006) "Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internets New Storytellers" Pew Internet & American Life Project http:// www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/186/report_display.asp Norwegian speakers might want to look at: Brake, D. (2007) 'Personlige webloggere og deres publikum: Hvem tror de egentlig at de snakker med?' i Lüders, M., Pritz, L. & Rasmussen, T. (Red.) Personlige medier: Livet mellom skjermene, 141-163. Oslo: Gyldendal. I have (the original) English language version, "Personal webloggers and their audiences: Who do they think they are talking to?" and will share it on request (though there is much I would change with it now). --- David Brake, Doctoral Student in Media and Communications, London School of Economics & Political Science <http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/study/ mPhilPhDMediaAndCommunications.htm> Also see http://davidbrake.org/ (home page), http://blog.org/ (personal weblog) and http://get.to/lseblog (academic groupblog) Author of Dealing With E-Mail - <http://davidbrake.org/ dealingwithemail/> callto://DavidBrake (Skype.com's Instant Messenger and net phone) Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/secretariat/legal/disclaimer.htm _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.11.19/953 - Release Date: 8/14/2007 5:19 PM