“The genealogy of weblogs points not to the world of letters but to the early history of museums “a random collection of strange, compelling objects, typically compiled and owned by a learned, well-off gentleman” reflecting European civilization’s dazed and wondering attempts to assimilate the glut of physical data that science and exploration were then unleashing”
(Dibbell, 2002) in “Blogging as Social Action: A genre Analysis of the Weblog", by Carolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd.
I have to admit that I didn’t expect such a compelling genealogical “turn” on the blogging history, nevertheless it makes some sense in the Russian context, especially if the question posed is “Why Russians blog the way they do?” Miller and Shepherd (a brief review of their article can be found here) approach blogging as a genre in its own right but not quite; given that blogging is cursed with a plethora of “ancestors” (a commonplace book, museum, clipping service, pamphlet, journal, diary etc.) it is characterized as a “complex rhetorical hybrid…with genetic imprints from all these prior genres.” So far, so good! However, as Eugene Gorny aptly observed, the Russian Live Journal community was not populated by teenage girls, but rather “by mature professionals, predominantly male, including internet workers, journalists, writers, philosophers and artists.”[1] Thus, blogging as a process/medium/message in Russia –as Gorny argues- has a Russia-specific character… But how is this character manifesting itself online?
As the LiveJournal community was growing, the navigation hindered by the increasing number of users and posts, thus on June 1st 2010 a new website was launched called besttoday.ru, which served as a “filter” site of the LiveJournal. In other words, users backing besttoday.ru were reading ALL OF THE POSTS on LiveJournal and “indulging” in blogs’ cherry-picking (that’s why it is called besttoday after all!) However, besttoday.ru is not the only website that solves the coordination problem in the blogosphere http://www.chaskor.ru/ is another website that performs the same function. Nevertheless, the coordination problem emerged in other blogging communities as well; and was solved by the elite bloggers who have ties to mainstream media and whose blogs serve as a first point of reference (Andrew Sullivan would be one such example). But the resolution of the problem results into “googlearchy”, which assumes that hierarchy in a networked structure, is absolutely necessary due to the time constraints of the readers. The most interesting part in their study of “googlearchy” though is not why/how the problem emerges, but in what cases it does not. More specifically, their study overtly excludes the cases of universities, newspapers, and public companies because these groups represent “a high degree of mutual recognition among actors.”[2]
Is there such trust among Russian bloggers or the well-off gentleman (more specifically Alexander Lebedev who owns Novaya Gazeta) from the initial analogy pulls the strings behind the Russian blogosphere?
Special credit goes to Jim Franklin, Drew Ryans, and all the members of the group Russian at Dickinson College! Last but not least, Im thankful to Prof. Alysa DeBlasio for initiating the social-network platform solely dedicated to Russian topics, which served as a point of reference for my research!
[1] Eugene Gorny, “Russian LiveJournal: National specifics in the development of a virtual community” in Russian-Cyberspace.org, published on 13th May 2004
[2] Mathew Hindman, Kostas Tsioutsiouliklis, and Judy Johnson, “Googlearchy: How a Few Heavily-Linked Sites Dominate Politics on the Web”, March 31, 2003, http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~kt/mpsa03.pdf
(Dibbell, 2002) in “Blogging as Social Action: A genre Analysis of the Weblog", by Carolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd.
I have to admit that I didn’t expect such a compelling genealogical “turn” on the blogging history, nevertheless it makes some sense in the Russian context, especially if the question posed is “Why Russians blog the way they do?” Miller and Shepherd (a brief review of their article can be found here) approach blogging as a genre in its own right but not quite; given that blogging is cursed with a plethora of “ancestors” (a commonplace book, museum, clipping service, pamphlet, journal, diary etc.) it is characterized as a “complex rhetorical hybrid…with genetic imprints from all these prior genres.” So far, so good! However, as Eugene Gorny aptly observed, the Russian Live Journal community was not populated by teenage girls, but rather “by mature professionals, predominantly male, including internet workers, journalists, writers, philosophers and artists.”[1] Thus, blogging as a process/medium/message in Russia –as Gorny argues- has a Russia-specific character… But how is this character manifesting itself online?
THE ECHOING EFFECT:
As the LiveJournal community was growing, the navigation hindered by the increasing number of users and posts, thus on June 1st 2010 a new website was launched called besttoday.ru, which served as a “filter” site of the LiveJournal. In other words, users backing besttoday.ru were reading ALL OF THE POSTS on LiveJournal and “indulging” in blogs’ cherry-picking (that’s why it is called besttoday after all!) However, besttoday.ru is not the only website that solves the coordination problem in the blogosphere http://www.chaskor.ru/ is another website that performs the same function. Nevertheless, the coordination problem emerged in other blogging communities as well; and was solved by the elite bloggers who have ties to mainstream media and whose blogs serve as a first point of reference (Andrew Sullivan would be one such example). But the resolution of the problem results into “googlearchy”, which assumes that hierarchy in a networked structure, is absolutely necessary due to the time constraints of the readers. The most interesting part in their study of “googlearchy” though is not why/how the problem emerges, but in what cases it does not. More specifically, their study overtly excludes the cases of universities, newspapers, and public companies because these groups represent “a high degree of mutual recognition among actors.”[2]
Is there such trust among Russian bloggers or the well-off gentleman (more specifically Alexander Lebedev who owns Novaya Gazeta) from the initial analogy pulls the strings behind the Russian blogosphere?
Special credit goes to Jim Franklin, Drew Ryans, and all the members of the group Russian at Dickinson College! Last but not least, Im thankful to Prof. Alysa DeBlasio for initiating the social-network platform solely dedicated to Russian topics, which served as a point of reference for my research!
[1] Eugene Gorny, “Russian LiveJournal: National specifics in the development of a virtual community” in Russian-Cyberspace.org, published on 13th May 2004
[2] Mathew Hindman, Kostas Tsioutsiouliklis, and Judy Johnson, “Googlearchy: How a Few Heavily-Linked Sites Dominate Politics on the Web”, March 31, 2003, http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~kt/mpsa03.pdf
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