To answer this question, we must first determine if blogs have the characteristics of a virtual settlement and then determine what their sense of community is.
Blogs, or weblogs, are interactive webpages in which the blog owner, or author, posts regular updates. Blogs can be about a particular topic, current events, or personal thoughts and expression, much like that of a personal journal.
As information is updated, it is added to the "top" of the blog. In addition to the space where the primary information is updated, there may be places for readers to post comments about the blog entries or to email the blog author. This creates two opportunities for interaction on the blog for the readers: one with the blog author and one with other readers. Additionally, blogs can have links to other Internet sites.
Sometimes these are links to online newspaper articles or other traditional media. In other instances, these are links to websites to which the author refers in his/her entries (e.g., restaurants, stores and other people's homepages).
Often, there are lists of other blogs that the blog author reads, a technological feature called a "blogroll." Blogs can develop networks of blogrolls which refer to each other. That is, Blog A lists Blog B, C, and D in a blogroll. Blog B lists Blogs, A, D, and F in a blogroll and Blog C lists Blog A, B, F and E in a blogroll, etc.. From these characteristics, is it possible that a blog could be a virtual settlement? Some researchers would argue "no." From the definition, virtual settlements need public interaction among a minimal number of participants. On a blog, instead of the many-to-many communication found in much group CMC, there tends to be a one-to-many form of communication from the author to the readers, especially on the main blog page.
Readers who wish to read the comments or to comment themselves may have to move off the main page onto a separate space for comments. Some blogs don't even have a place for comments. Thus, from Jones's (1997) perspective, the lack of public interaction would preclude a blog from being a virtual settlement and, thus, from being a virtual community. Others might argue that at least some blogs could be virtual settlements. Despite there being no place for public interaction directly on the main page of the blog, blogs do offer interactivity.
Blogs are regularly updated. So the author is clearly interacting, through updating, with the audience. In addition, there is clearly an audience as indicated by the presence of comments. Even if the readers do not comment, blog authors may know people are reading because of the number of "hits" or visits to their blog site as reported through their blog software. In addition, although the main page of the blog is based on a one-to-many interaction, the blog author may interact individually with his or her readers.
This may occur through private email, thereby creating private online interactions between the blog author and the readers. Some blog authors even reference comments and emails from their readers within their blog entries publicly opening up the interaction to the rest of the participants.
By definition, it would appear that blog authors are aware of and writing to their audience. Thus, for the blog author in particular, there is interactivity. There is also interaction between blogs authors through blogrolls, the lists of other blogs that the blog author reads. Readers can see which blogs the author fancies and click on a link to go to the blog site. Blogrolls provide a link between blogs, inter-connecting them. Additionally, through the blog's software, blogrolls allow the recipients of the link to notice 1) that they have been added to someone's blogroll and 2) to identify who added them. Occasionally, the recipients of a blogroll link will then add the referring blog to their own blogroll. Blog authors will also refer to other blogs in their posts.
They may refer to something the other blog author wrote about or simply encourage the readers to "check this blog out." Thus, blogs create a social network between themselves through their references links to each other. Finally, although comments may not be stored on the main blog page, they are nevertheless included in a public space for many-to-many communication. Commenters can communicate with the blog author and each other, and readers can review these interactions. Thus, blogs with active comments can have spaces for public interactions. Is there something special about those who choose to comment and those who do not? Those who choose not to read or respond to comments in blogs are most similar to lurkers in other virtual communities. Lurkers are members of a virtual community who regularly participate by reading messages but do not contribute to the conversation. They are generally viewed negatively by many researchers because they do not actively contribute to the virtual community (Kollock & Smith, 1996). Nonetheless, lurkers may comprise the vast majority of participants of a virtual community (Blanchard & Markus, 2003).
Additionally, Blanchard and Markus (2003) report that lurkers do have a clear sense of community within the virtual community, although it is weaker than that of the more active members. It seems reasonable to expect that noncommenters in a blog would be similar. We can conclude, then, that some blogs, especially active, popular and highly referenced blogs, may fit Jones's (1997) definition of a virtual settlement. They meet the requirements of having a minimal level of public interactions. These interactions, however, are not nearly as public as other forms of CMC-based virtual settlements. There is evidence of a sustained number of members shown by the presence of regular commenters, a stable number of daily hits, and links in blogrolls. Thus, a blog could be a virtual settlement. But, can it have a sense of virtual community?
MKESSA, Patricia
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