International Conference on English Language and Literature (ICELL – 2013)

Hyderabad, India, January 19 – 20, 2013

Discourse of blogs: Negotiating the private and the public on the personal
weblog
Emelia Noronha

Research Scholar, HSS Department, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India.

Assistant Professor, Prahladrai Dalmia Lions College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai, India.

emelia.n@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT: Personal blogs are today being extensively used by individuals for self expression. This paper is an
attempt to understand how bloggers negotiate the private and the public on the personal blog. It articulates issues
relating to the purpose of the personal blog, the repercussions of self revelations, the concept of ‘privacy’ and
relationship between self disclosure and reader relationship. The paper puts forward the proposition that the
personal blog is the digital ‘technology of the self’ (Foucault, 1988) which uses the verbalization process to gain a
greater understanding of one self. The insight gained into the blogging phenomenon has been supplemented with
examples taken from the blogs of two pioneer bloggers: Justin Hall and Carolyn Burke.

Keywords: Personal blogs, self expression, self revelation, privacy, blogging, reader relationship.

1. Introduction
Personal weblogs give expression to the private world of the bloggers. Unlike the paper diary form that is intended
solely for the eyes of the diarist, or a select few, the weblog is a medium wherein the posts are published with the
intention of making it public. The weblogs thus exist in the liminal zone between the public and the private. This
raises a number of questions: For whom are the blogs written? Are they meant for the blogger or for the readers?
How personal are these personal blogs? What is the level of privacy? If the contents are relating to intimate details
of one’s life why are they made public? What is the impact of such revelations on the World Wide Web? If the
bloggers are aware of the repercussions why do they take the risk?

2. Are personal blogs for self reflection?

In the context of the question, “For whom do you blog?” the popular refrain is “I blog for me”. This statement is
statistically backed by the findings of Lenhart and Fox [1] wherein 52% of US bloggers say that they blog mostly for
themselves, not for an audience and only 32% say that they blog mostly for their audience. Like the diarist, writing
in an attempt to reflect on one’s life, the personal blog too keeps a record of the inner thoughts of the blogger’s life.
The blog of Peter Merholz is called: peterme.com: Links, thoughts, and essays from Peter Merholz. Carolyn Burke
on her blog, Virtually Yours: Carolyn L Burke, subtitled My Cognitive and Physical Landscape, welcomes the
readers to her cognitive landscape.
On the online diary history project when Carolyn Burke[2] was asked the question, “How did you start writing an
online journal?” she answered:

1995: I needed an outlet to talk about myself, privately and with someone listening. My 10 year
relationship was ending, and I couldn't talk to him any more about life and me and everything
inbetween[sic] . . . I need to talk to someone about that. There just didn't seem to be someone. So I wrote.

Burke writes unabashedly about herself online because of her belief, “in the power of good that results from free
expression, free information exchange, and open and honest communication between people.” The weblog for Burke
is a place that exposes the “private mental spaces to everyones' scrutiny” giving “a snapshot of what a person is like
on the inside”.

For Burke, writing freely about oneself is “like a social obligation”. This is one way in which she feels she can “give
back to society something important: a snapshot of what a person is like on the inside. This is something that we
don't get access to in face to face, social society.” Complete honesty in self-reflection was the underlying principle

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upon which the weblog of Carolyn Burke was based. She wanted others too to do the same – “expose their inner
lives to everyone else. Complete open honest people. What a great and ideal world would result.” [2]

Online self expression helps in self clarification, self enhancement and self validation. The computer, like the
mirror, helps to reflect the inner thoughts and beliefs. The blogger is the writer and the reader of his thoughts. Public
enunciation of ideas helps to consolidate them. This is akin to what Peter Elbow[3] calls “private writing”. Rebecca
Blood (2000) notes that as the bloggers write about their opinions and daily life it will help them develop a trust in
their own perspective which will eventually lead them to being “less reflexive and more reflective”, and find their
“own opinions and ideas worthy of serious consideration.”

Though bloggers indicate that the blog is only for themselves, however, one cannot deny that the blog is not a
private space, and yet it “feels” like one [4]. Burke on her weblog comments, “This diary is for *me*. And that others
peek in it isn't important.”(A new start. Mon Mar 6 1995, Virtually Yours: Carolyn L Burke).

The sense of a personal space that bloggers experience is a result of the bloggers sense of ownership and control
with regards to their blogs. Since the bloggers moderate the flow of comments and are the sole authors of the writing
space they often feel a sense of ownership with regards to their blogs. Boyd [5] notes, that bloggers talk about their
blogs as if it were their home - wherein the readers are invited. “While anyone can access most blogs, it is this sense
of ownership that makes the blog feel like a personal space” [5]. But this sense of control is illusory, for whatever is
disclosed on the internet no matter how strong the privacy controls provided by the blogging platform are, in the
digital space, it is possible to track everything that is posted on the internet. Thus the matter that is posted on a blog
is no more private but public.

3. Impact of self revelations

The authors of Weblogs voluntarily archive their personal thoughts and ideas, even if they are most intimate. Most
of the blog authors are aware of the possible repercussions of their revelations as Burke indicates on her blog that:

There are somethings that I just cannot write here -- about my own life. Such would have unduly harsh
effects on various parts of my more conservatively fronted life. That said, I end up discussing things
metaphorically and not literally factually (Things I shouldn't say. Thu, Mar 30 1995, Virtually Yours:
Carolyn L Burke ).

Media reports and bloggers’ own testimony indicates that the personal details posted on the blog can sometimes
result in harm to the blogger. Many bloggers have lost their jobs because of their posts that were of concern to their
employers. The Central Bucks school board, in Doylestown Township , Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States
voted unanimously to terminate the employment of Central Bucks East High School English teacher Natalie
Munroe, a blogger as she posted disparaging comments about her students. Thought the school authorities asserted
that “The action this evening of the board of school directors was for performance and not freedom of speech”
Kristofic [6]. A study conducted by Viegas [7] suggests that bloggers, who responded in their survey, believed that
they were responsible for the content that they posted on their blogs; but they were not concerned about the
persistence of their posts - the details of their private lives that they left on the internet.

Burke started blogging in 1995, after three years she stopped blogging because there were troubles in her life “that
couldn't be placed online without serious repercussions” [2]. Justin Hall, another pioneer in weblogging who has been
blogging extensively since 1995, stopped blogging in 2005. He posted an emotional ten minute video in January
2005, giving vent to his distress about the problems and stress that he was facing regarding his personal blog. The
video is a tearful emotional rant about the importance of blogging in his life and the dilemma he is faced with when
people equally important to him would not want him to continue blogging. Blogging is almost a religion to bloggers
like Justin Hall and one can sense the helplessness and pain that they undergo when their personal lives are
threatened because of their passion for blogging.

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4. Concept of privacy
Defining the notion of privacy is a difficult enterprise. The Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines privacy as “the
quality or state of being apart from company or observation”, “freedom from unauthorized intrusion”. The Oxford
English Dictionary defines it as “state or condition of being withdrawn from the society of others, or from public
interest”. Privacy is also understood as “the right to be let alone” (Justice Brandeis's dissent in Olmstead v. U. S.
1928).The definition of privacy has evolved with the changing times in history. In the twentieth century the notion
of privacy meant the ability to have a place where one is not disturbed, any intrusion of this place is viewed as
intrusion of privacy, it could also mean being allowed to have private communication without telephone calls being
tampered or tapped, this notion later developed into protection from unsolicited calls and messages. In the twenty-
first century the notion of privacy centers round protection of or lack of control over personal information such as
names, social security numbers, health and financial information from unauthorized access[8].

The notion of privacy is a social construct. The idea of privacy has been rooted in society in numerous unwritten
ways but the concept came into being as a ‘right’- right to privacy- only in the early part of the twentieth century.
One needs to understand the concept of privacy in the context of the changes that the technological/digital revolution
has ushered in. With the advances made by the surveillance technologies, Brin [9] argues that the notion of privacy is
impossible. With the weblogggers ready to divulge the intimate details of their lives to millions of people on the
web, the notion of what is ‘private’ is questionable. This phenomenon of bloggers divulging loads of personal
information on their blogs is indicative of the malaise of the times indicated by Scott McNealy’s famous quip, “You
already have zero privacy. Get over it”[10].

5. Reader relationship and personal disclosure

Bloggers maintain blogs to develop and retain personal relationships. Taking into consideration the kind of
information bloggers share on personal blogs and the communicative strategies used for discussion or conversation,
one can assert that blogging is a social activity. Studies have found that the level of self-disclosure on personal blogs
have an impact on the structure and quality of social relations. A study by Bane et al. [11] examined female bloggers'
perceptions of online and "real-life" same-sex friendships. It also examined relationships between self-disclosure
through blogs and perceptions of the two types of friendships. The study concluded that bloggers with a high level
of self-disclosure on their blogs reported a high number of online friends and the satisfaction levels also were
reported to be high. Stefanone and Jang [12] in their study found that bloggers exhibiting higher level of extraversion
and self-disclosure traits maintain larger ‘strong-tie social networks’ and are more likely to use blogs to support the
relationships. The personal blog is thus a paradox, as it is both private and public.

The self revelatory practice that bloggers engage in is not to be looked upon as mere ‘digital exhibitionism’[13] . The
communicative situation used by the bloggers, according to Schmidt, contributes to the emergence of ‘personal
public spheres’ which is the defining feature of the social nature of the Web. This ‘personal public sphere’ is a result
of the bloggers making use of the information relevant to them and directing it to a set of intended audience in an
attempt to engage in conversation. Bloggers use their ‘personal public spheres’ in identity management and
relationship management in a complex way.

The ‘Author-God’ factor is predominant in blogs. Another perspective to the reader-blogger relationship is the
unsigned pact signed by the reader with the blogger that they are reading the mind of the blogger in an unedited
fashion. This pact when breached causes heartbreak and uproar as in the Kaycee Nicole hoax. The blogging
community was outraged by the hoax. They felt cheated and ‘tricked’. The online community had invested
emotionally in the life of Kaycee Nicole, the young attractive woman allegedly diagnosed with leukemia, many had
written to Kaycee, they had even talked to her on the phone; they had thus participated in the act of socialization .
The blog was ‘real’ to the readers and when they found out that it was fictional they were outraged for they felt
“they had been used” [14]. Blogs rely upon the foundation of sincerity and immediacy. And there is thus a great
stress on originality, collective ethics and the authorial persona in the blog culture. The authenticity of the blog is an
essential characteristic that binds the reader-blogger relationship.

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6. Negotiating between the private and the public realm.

Broad societal changes have taken place in the public realm with the emergence, predominance and popularity of
self revelatory genres such as the reality shows and chat shows. The willingness to share personal information on the
television screen and online – weblogs, social networking sites, lifelogging - is a result of these societal changes.
The increase in the prevalence of such self revelatory tendencies in the mass media makes ‘self revelation’ an
acceptable norm. A weakening of the boundary between the public and the private began with the beginning of
reality shows on American television (MTV’s The Real World which was a great hit) and the media handling the
Clinton Lewinsky scandal [15]. “American culture became obsessed with both making celebrities into regular people
(as with Clinton) and making regular people into celebrities (as with Lewinsky)” [15]. The plethora of television
shows making celebrities out of common people by exposing their private lives is an obsession which is thriving in
the present times. Thus it is the cultural ethos of the times that does not out rightly censure the publicizing of private
matter, on the contrary gaining access to every ordinary facet of an individual’s life panders to the inner human
desire for shared experience. Karlsson [16] asserts that the respondents in the survey when explaining the reasons that
made them habitual readers of the diary blog speak of “seeking and being comforted by reading the prosaic relations
of people like them”.

The popularity of the memoir in the present times is indicative of the quest to know and understand other ordinary
lives like ours. The curiosity to gain an in depth, un-curtailed insight into the problems of others has increased the
popularity of memoirs like Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia,
Running with Scissors, I Love Yous Are for White People, etc. Reading a memoir is the best way to find out what it’s
like to be someone else. Out of the top ten bestsellers listed by Amazon for the year 2010-2011 two are memoirs -
The Glass Castle: A Memoir and Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and
Indonesia . For James Atlas, the memoir trend is a as part of general ‘culture of confession’, consistent with talk
shows and 12-step programs, trauma and therapy, but also part of a “historic American longing to discover who we
are” [17]. The blogs too like memoirs are rooted in “reality” and thus readers of blogs get a daily scoop of unedited
reality.

Jill Walker [14] argues that while the spread of literacy led to the separation of the public and private sphere and the
spread of network literacy led to a collapse of these two spheres. The participatory nature of the reading and writing
on the internet-enabled media like blogs are social rather than solitary activities. The portals that host the weblogs
function as a social community that unite the groups by a set of commonly shared interests, mutual empathy and the
willingness to share personal experiences and thoughts[18]. An atmosphere that boasts of mutual sharing of self
revelations in order to connect and build relationships with a wider audience thus does not perceive the difference
between the ‘private’ and the ‘public’ sphere. Here it is authenticity and reality of information that is given prime
importance. It is “allowing public access to personal thoughts and personal space as a form of agency—a way to
make one’s life significant through the feedback and support of readers” that gains predominance.

But how “real” is the persona that is revealed online or on the screen. Can the thoughts and experiences shared on
the weblog be taken at face value; do they truly indicate a raw expression of the inner travails of the person engaged
in blogging? What is the function of the presentation of self on the blogs?

7. The presentation of self on weblogs

“And who are you, said he?

Don’t puzzle me , I said” (Laurence Sterne in Tristram Shandy chapter 33 Vol 2 )

The questions: ‘Who am I?’ and ‘How do I define myself?’ have plagued the human kind since the classical times.
Writing played an important role in the attempt to understand the ‘real self’. Foucault [19] traces the ‘technologies of
the self’ from the classical to the present times – dialectic, letter-writing, meditation and the interpretation of
dreams.

Blogging is the digital technology of the self in today’s cyber world. A post in Virtually Yours: Carolyn L Burke
begins in the following way: “honestly, who am I? The person I was is gone. [identity crisis, uhoh] My mind isn't
interested in many things anymore, . .” (Thu, Jul 25, 1996).

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Dialectical discourse was the route to self understanding in the classical world, so are blogs used today to gain
greater insights into the Socratic notion of "taking care of oneself". The dialectic here is with oneself as well as the
unseen, sympathetic reader in the virtual space. “Should I write the facts or the feelings? Both are ever so amusing...
I think I'll sketch in just a bit of both.” (How I met...Thu, Feb 23, 1995, Virtually Yours: Carolyn L Burke).The
hyperlinked page on ‘Personality’ in Burke’s blog elaborates upon her ideas on the concept of personality which is
not a sum of the list of the likes she enumerates, but indicates that she would like the readers to form their opinion of
her: “But just try to get a non-abstract opinion out of me!”

The ‘public’ nature of the ‘online ramblings’, are perceived as a threat to the blogging condition:

Should I give up on this pursuit? I've had so many strange reactions lately as the number of friends who
read this reaches critical mass. I have become the based reporter of their lives rather than the simple studier
of myself.” - The End? Sat, May 20, 1995 (Virtually Yours: Carolyn L Burke)

Writing about oneself cannot be an exercise in isolation; the individuals who touch upon the lives of the blogger
play an intrinsic role in understanding one’s actions, behaviour and oneself. But writing about them has
repercussions that are problematic to deal with offline. It is due to such reasons that Burke prefers to use
pseudonyms so as to protect the offline identities of her friends. Burke’s post titled: How I met... dated Thu, Feb 23,
1995, starts with the lines “I am going to use initials here to protect the dignity of most of those in the know. They'll
know who they are, but some lines just can't be crossed ... yet.”

Burke invites her readers to lurk into her relationships, her post: Secret dialogues about Peter, comes with a
disclaimer: “All names have been altered except mine and his. Any others involved may request that their names be
re-altered anytime.”

On the other hand Justin Hall’s ‘autobio’, on justin links, subtitled ‘daze’ is heavily hyperlinked that leads the reader
into a labyrinth of details that pile up with the increasing number of hyperlinks. Every individual, place and incident
that is named in the ‘autobio’ is linked to narratives that are in turn further linked to other narratives. The very act of
reading involves peeling off layers of narratives only to be left with a myriad impressions that the reader has to put
together to make a complete sense of the total narrative. The hyperlinked ‘autobio’ contains not only descriptive
details but also poems, creative graphics, audio and video. The post entitled ‘chandritings’ enumerates a linked list
of dated posts that contain poetic musings of Justin Hall complete with photographs and audio.

Burke on her blog invites the reader to be the voyeur trying to decipher the happenings indicated in the form of
actual transcripts of letters (pressenter. Wed, Dec 20, 1995, A letter to Niels) and emails (the exchange of emails
between her and Aaron Weiss is hyperlinked on the post titled - Aaron Wed, Jun 7, 1995). Justin Hall on the other
hand lays bare his entire life on his blog. The people with whom he interacts are vivisected thoroughly, on certain
occasions he does indicate their awareness of their presence on his blog. His most engrossing ‘love life’ with
Chandra is chronicled on the post entitled ‘Chandra’.

Justin Hall elaborates upon his life in school, the friends he had, the teachers, the girls friends and the intimacies he
shared with them, his tryst with drugs, his passion for computer, his fathers’ suicide, his step father and the
development of their relationship, the near nervous breakdown he suffered, the physical ailments that he went
through – a post on his disjointed shoulder gives the entire process of his recovery complete with photographs, X-
ray of the shoulder and the medical process. Justin Hall’s blog is almost a ‘lifelog’.

Serfaty in The Mirror and the Veil: An Overview of American Online Diaries and Blogs asserts that the computer
screen serves both as a mirror and a veil to the bloggers. The computer mirrors the self – including the blog readers
who reflect the writer back to him/herself- and veils /shields the “gaze of the other”, which gives a sense of privacy
and thereby encourages self-disclosure. The dialogue on the blog is inward, one of introspection which one sees in
the Confessions of St. Agustine, following are some examples:

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Back to me. This is me talking writing. Thinking. About what though? What is it I wanted to say hear? I'm
not really lonely. But alone rightnow. Slicing up time in little slivers to get things done and people visited. -
Lying here. (Fri, Feb 2, 1996 ,Virtually Yours: Carolyn L Burke.)

Such introspective posts keep up the ‘mirror’ image of the blogs. Justin Hall’s ‘dark night flick’ a video blog posted
on 14 January 2005 : 12:27 portrayed the agony that he was going through received comments that fills up 65 pages
. The comments are indicative of the dialogic nature of the blogs.

The comments that the single post generated are indicative of the range of social bonds that the blog of Justin Hall
had created. From sympathetic reactions that vouch for the well being of Justin to a range of advice pouring out, in
an attempt to help him cope with the tragedy of his life, is highly therapeutic in nature:

You are heavily addicted to the internet & self-presentation and acting like an addict. Posting a video of
yourself crying in deep desperation is not real. It was very real when you taped it, but it has become unreal
when posted. Nothing is real here, I'm not real and your're not real. So it has not the slightest curativeness,
it just aggravates the colonisation of your real life by the web.- (on 16 January 2005 : 21:27, Denkedran
sez:- justin’s links)

Such advice one would encounter in the real world from people who understand us and our problems thoroughly.
The blog that Justin Hall has been maintaining since 1994 had thus forged social ties with the readers which are akin
to the ties we see in ‘real life’. The sensitivity which is evident in understanding the agony of Justin Hall vouches for
the fact that the bonds made in the virtual world are not devoid of emotions, they are as real as in the non virtual life.

8. Conclusion
What Foucault [19] said about the technologies of the self can thus be applied to blogs. Foucault elaborates on the
example given by Saint John Cassian about the monk who stole bread. The monk in the example was not ready to
speak out his doing, for evil thoughts cannot be expressed without difficulty – evil is hidden and un-stated – the
moment the monk confessed, his thoughts were purged of their evil intent and the ‘devil’ went out of him. Thus
Foucault asserts that “Confession is a mark of truth”. The verbal expression plays a very important role in
constituting the ‘self’. And “to use these techniques without renouncing oneself constitutes a decisive break.”
Taking this as the foundation stone one can thus strongly assert that blogs are indeed one of the “technologies of the
self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations
on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain
a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality” [19].

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