In the very beginning of the article “Blogging as Social Action” by Carolyn Miller and Dawn Sherpard, it is mentioned that many rhetorical issues are raised by weblogs and that the most interesting of these is “the peculiar intersection of the public and private that weblogs seem to invite.” Basically, within blogs you have no private sphere. It had been obvious to me prior to reading this article that weblogs were public posts available to anyone who wished to look at it; however, I did not understand the full history or depth of this interaction in weblogs.
Blogs originated in an era where the American culture was fascinated by making regular people into celebrities and celebrities into regular people. The examples used in the article were the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal and reality shows like the “real world”. People are basically just interested in knowing details about everyone’s life even if it doesn’t concern them. This interest is defined in the article as “mediated voyeurism”. One point I would like to make is that, in the article they make it seem like this “mediated voyeurism” can violate a persons’ privacy, but, in the case of a blog, a person creates it with the full knowledge that anyone can read it. So, in my opinion, if something goes wrong (as in some of the examples at the very beginning of the article), or if people get mad at a blogger, or a blogger feels their privacy has been violated, it is not the fault of the curious reader but of the careless writer. Humans are always going to be interested in other peoples lives, and things like blogs, reality TV shows, and cell phones make it easier to become intrigued by someone else’s life. If you put it out there in the open, you should expect it to be read and perhaps criticized. It is at the persons own risk to put themselves in the public eye. However, some people want there ideas known and heard and in this case blogs are a great thing.
Our discussion from class helped me to determine what exactly blogs are used for. Blogs, I think, are mainly a form of self-expression. You can put yourself out there and express your ideas, thoughts, and opinions. Once you have posted these, others can comment on your blogs, which is how blogs can be extremely useful in creating communities. People with the same ideas can come together and discuss topics of interest and form a group of like-minded persons. Jeff Rice also points out this connectivity of people and information in his article when he is talking about “the space on the page”. I do agree that networks are very important in this respect, but I still feel that basic writing on paper is valuable and my hope is that it is not taken over completely by new media. In my small discussion we also talked about how blogs can be used as a more permanent journal. On some blog sites you are allowed to make your blogs private, so it is basically just like a diary but it is safer than using word which could be deleted if your computer crashed. I think this is a great idea because you really can preserve memories for a lifetime with almost no chance of losing what you have written. They can also be used to stay connected to family without having to write separate letters or emails. These last couple examples are times when none or just a few people will be reading a persons blog, but in many cases, blogs are being read by tons of people even if the blogger is unaware of this fact. Although blogs can be useful in creating communities and sharing knowledge, it is a place where very private information should not be displayed for all to see. There is no separation between public and private spheres in the blogging world.
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