For all those who want to get into the business of thesis writing...well, it is definitely a challenge. Personally, it was hard for me to accept the mantra "everything is just a draft" but with the thesis I definitely got it thanks to my supervisor, to whom Im really grateful by the way. At this stage of my research, I realized that blogs definitely constitute ACTIONS as long as they are read (so thanks to all those readers around the world who do read this one:) your number left me in a state of pleasant surprise! )
In the second "draft" of my introduction I elaborate further on the statement "blogging equals action" so here it goes:
"Human action is a beautiful paradox - an inherent attribute of human existence and yet, totally unpredictable in the grand scheme of things. As Hannah Arendt understood well “in acting, in contradistinction to working, it is indeed true that we can really never know what we are doing”[1], which premise holds quite strongly in the case of Russian blogging - they really don’t know what they are doing but they are blogging anyway. The reason why Russian blogging requires further elaboration and research is not merely because “blogging is interesting” or “blogging is a new phenomenon”; undoubtedly these characteristics of blogging are real but a painstaking approach is required due to its quality as a force that shapes the current Russian political and social predicament. Blogging is a new synonym for human action, and as such it invokes my interest and fascination; however, in order to understand it I chose Arendt, because she pertinently delineates the course of human action in every sphere of human organization, be it political or social. From Hobbes’ efforts to “establish a reasonable teleology of action” which initiated philosophy into politics, and since then patterns of human actions have been mistaken for meaning,[2] to the understanding of truth, which is located outside of political sphere, Arendt’s work is the starting point for Russian blogosphere’s conceptualization. Furthermore, she aptly described a conflict between the individual human action expectations – the highest of such expectations would be to attain earthly immortality - and the origins of the action, which according to Vico (whom Arendt cites) are guided by “passions, private aims, and the satisfaction of selfish desires.”[3] This very conflict characterizes the academic discourses about blogging, where again we have the optimists and the skeptics fighting about the semantics of this hybrid way of acting.
The academic debate on blogging so far swirls – primarily - around the following question “does the blogosphere represent an extension of the public sphere or does it create multiple public spheres where human interaction is virtually accommodated?” These questions are inspired by the work of Jurgen Habermas “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere”, where the public sphere is treated as a historical category in order to explain the communicative interaction of the bourgeoisie in the 18th century and establishes its relevance for today’s understanding of rational communication. Therefore, Habermasian ideas of public sphere will be shingled with Arendtian ones, in order to construct a solid argument about whether Russian blogosphere can be treated as a form of such public interaction. Furthermore, the polemical take on Habermasian public sphere by Chantal Mouffe will congeal the argument by adding the significance of the political and the urging acknowledgment of individual “spontaneity” in the multifaceted web of social networks. On the empirical side of the argument, I will concentrate on one platform (besttoday.ru) and follow a discursive path in my analysis, since I will inspect blog entries. Nevertheless, the virtual aspect of blogging in particular and the “digitalization” of our daily life in general, cannot be studied in isolation from its physical components, which are people. Thus, while investing the concepts of public sphere by the above mentioned thinkers, I “wrestle” with the Russian understanding of action as manifested on the particular segment of blogosphere and dare to suggest that it is a new way of rediscovering the political."
[1] The editor of Arendt’s text chose to use her reflections on action, work and labor before the extract dedicated to Public Sphere, In Baehr, Peter. The Portable Hannah Arendt. New York: Penguin Group, 180
[2] In Arendt’s text the most prominent historian who mistakenly understood pattern as meaning was Karl Marx, as “he construed his patter this way because he was concerned with action and impatient with history.” In Baehr, Peter. The Portable Hannah Arendt. New York: Penguin Group, 307
[3] Ibid. 307
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