blog on blogs

TanyaBurr.com is a blog written by a twenty four year old fashion and beauty blogger/YouTube sensation. Tanya features step by step make up tutorials, the latest beauty and fashion recommendations, product reviews, and often documents aspects of her daily life through Internet vlogs and blogs alike, to over a million subscribers.

Thelwall and Wouters (2005) deem blogs such as Tanya Burr’s practical since it is frequently updated, offers a wide breadth and depth of qualitative ilinformation, and presents blog posts in a visually appealing manner; Tanya’s blog features an archiving system that lists all of her previous posts in chronological order, ensuring that viewers are able to navigate through blog posts with ease. Thelwall and Wouters (2005) further acknowledge the low running cost of an online blog, as well as the ease of global access; subscribers are able to access TanyaBurr.com with a suitable technological device and access to the Internet (Mann and Stewart 2000). Tanya’s blog also holds a particular style of writing that those who subscribe to TanyaBurr.com can easily relate to; thus, Tanya is able to build a rapport with her subscribers, and offers a sense of familiarity to all of her readers. 

Further, Tanya’s blog posts allow subscribers to comment with their own interests and opinions, which further increases the interactivity amongst her and her subscribers, which again could build a sense of rapport. This furthers allows for a wider depth of study when doing research, since those who are researching have a wider breadth and depth of information to analyze. Similarly, Tanya’s blog has links to, and often promotes both her Twitter and Instagram pages; further increasing interconnectivity and allowing those who subscribe a personal insight to Tanya’s life. In a social research sense, access to Twitter and Instagram could allow for further area of personal study, with information that isn’t accessible via a blog.

However, drawing upon Goffman’s  (1972) theory of impression management, how could a researcher be sure that they are receiving accurate information when reading a blog, as opposed to information that the owner/writer of the blog is writing purposefully, in an attempt to portray themselves as somebody who harbors desired qualities. For instance, Tanya may promote that she enjoys using products that are sponsored by charities and thus donates each time she buys; yet this may not be true. Instead, Tanya may be trying to present herself in a moral and ethical manner.

Similarly, one might question how true the posts that Tanya provides on her blog are. How is one able to ensure that the information that Tanya is providing is of her own opinion, and that she is giving a true reflection of the products in which she has tried and tested. For example, Tanya may be sponsored by a certain make up brand to feature a post about their latest product, in order to gain a sum of money, Tanya may suggest that the product she has received is fantastic, when in actual fact she would otherwise disregard such product. However, this issue is not true for blogs or Internet research alone; this could be the case in any type of study, including interviews. 

            A further issue with blogs is the debate between the public and the private. This ethical issue questions whether or not bloggers publish posts with the intention of them being open to the public eye, or whether they are private domain. Though, Hookway (2008) distinguishes between the personal and the private in relation to blogging; suggesting that many bloggers, though delving into their private lives throughout blogs, upload posts with the intention that other people are going to read them.

It would appear that of late, social researchers have began to explore to what extent traditional research methods could be, and increasingly have been applied in an online context, with many researchers concluding that the promotion of an online blogosphere offers an innovative and exciting frontier for social research. Though Internet blogs do introduce positive methodological, practical and theoretical contributions to social research, issues still remain when partaking in, and conducting such online research, as will illustrated in this blog.

            I believe that when conducting research within the module ourselves, blogs offer significant benefits. Firstly, they are widely available; in one simple online search i was able to locate numerous blogs surrounding various topics in which i was wishing to investigate. Further, blogs are low cost; often free to view for those conducting research, and are designed so that you can select time frames in which is useful when you are wishing to analyse specific dates, as we wish to do so as a group when conducting our own research. As a blogger, you also have the choice to remain anonymous, which is useful when blogging about a sensitive topic; such as the one we chose to investigate as a group. This means that a blogger can provide information, without worrying that everybody in the public sphere will become aware of their experiences. 

References

Goffman, E. (1972) Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behaviour, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Mann, C. and Stewart, F. (2000) Internet Communication and Qualitative Research: A Handbook for Researching Online. London: Sage Publications.

Thelwall, M., & Wouters, P. (2005). What's the deal with the web/Blogs/the next big technology: A key role for information science in e-social science research? Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3507, 187-199

Hookway, J (2008) ‘Entering the Blogosphere’: some strategies for using blogs in social research, available at http://www.uk.sagepub.com/jamesandbusher/HOOKWAY.pdf, last accessed: 01/04/14