Food Blogs Serve Up More Than Just Food

Food blogs are a genre that have become increasingly present in the online world. We, as a society, love to eat, and food blogs are the natural online extension of our communal love affair. The content, along with the bloggers who produce it, can be found to be strongly female-based and celebratory of stereotypes related to women and domesticity. The food blog community, through my own research, was found to be composed of mostly women who shared common roles as housewives and primary caregivers; women who focused more on the needs of their families then the enjoyment or opinions of themselves. This research strengthens the scholarly argument that food blogs uphold traditional female stereotypes and hinder the movement of gender equality on the domestic front; doing so by developing it through analysis of interactions within the community and the personas of the food blog users themselves.



Comments taken from food posts prove to be perfect examples of women upholding their own stereotypes. Comments posted on food blogs often paint the user’s days as less fulfilling and productive as those of their family members. This is evidenced in a comment taken from a post for “Scalloped Potatoes and Ham” off of one of the largest food blogs online, The Pioneer Woman, states that user Deborah Chessey says ““I made this meal last night and every person in my family loved it. There is only one thing that I added: during the cooking time I watched the Pilot of “Revenge” and I found it to be just as captivating as you suggested it would be. Today my kids are at school, my husband is at work and I am eating leftover scallops and watching more episodes of Revenge.” (Chessey). The comment alludes to the argument that food blogs cannot be seen as mediums which further the feminist movement as it references the unproductive realities of many housewives. Deborah, for example,states that she is sitting around and watching TV all day while her husband goes to work. It also alludes to the rhetoric behind their choice to fill that position. She may be happy to be a housewife, but at the same time, she is doing nothing but waiting on her family, in a literal and figurative sense; wasting time until she has a family member whose bidding she must attend to or meal she must prepare.


Ree Drummond also separates her blog into categories, specifying what recipes are “cowboy food”, meaning that they tailored to men’s stereotypical taste of meat and potatoes, or “cowgirl food”, featuring more pastas, salads, and gourmet-inspired dishes. Despite the recipe for the “Marlboro Man Sandwich- PW Style” in the post “Make This Tonight” being regarded as a ‘cowgirl’ recipe, commenters were still focused on their husbands and families rather than their own opinions on the food. For example, as seen below:




This comment not only never mentions her own opinion on the recipe, despite it being tailored for women’s tastes as ‘cowgirl food’, but it also mentions the fact that she makes her husband’s lunch every day, tailored to his specifications- despite the fact her husband, in this modern world, is more than capable of making his own. Even if these examples of users are all food community members who believe that their domestic involvement is a choice, it is still their person that is in the kitchen, preparing the food, rather than having their husbands as equal partners in this domestic activity.



Driving home this inequality of women in the kitchen is the profiles and personas of the food community users. On the website Tasty Kitchen they feature a section with introductory profiles of certain bloggers in their community. Of the twenty six profiles, twenty four of them were women, fifteen of them were stay-at-home mothers, and only six of them had careers outside of their homes (Tasty Kitchen). Profiles, as well as the blogs that the users run, painted their lives ideal and domestically easy. Tina, a profiled member who runs the blog Mommy’s Kitchen, states that while she is a stay-at-home mom, she “prefers Domestic Engineer only because it sounds much more professional.” (TK-Erica). Below is also fragment of the “About” Page from her own blog:



Not only do these statements allude to the societal trend of looking down on stay-at-home mothers, it hint at slight unhappiness about her state as a homemaker. Especially in her “about” page, she focuses on her family rather than who she is separate from those she cooks and cleans for. While it may have been their ‘choice’ to stay at home, this choice was most likely influenced by societal factors and was not a one made of pure self- interest. Delilah Campbell, in the essay “Housewives’ Choice?” from the journal ‘Trouble and Strife” (2001), confirms similar views by commenting on how it is difficult to see domesticity as a hobby, especially for women. As she states, women are expected to fulfill a domestic role to some extent, and until housework is equally shared by men and women, it is hard to see this choice as a valid option, free of outside factors and pre-imposed gender expectations (Campbell par. 30). These personas are also validated through the blogging process itself.

This sense of validity in their persona comes with using blogging as a confessional medium. Blogs have an incredible amount of freedom for expression, which is afforded by the Internet. As scholar Laurie McNeill mentions, they are informal biographies that are not ‘vetted’ my editors or publishing houses to determine their marketability (McNeill 25). This means that the person being presented is not crafted by a company looking actively for an audience, but is more organic and honest. The person, and the activities that she is talking about, are actual representations of her life; not only does she talk about domesticity but she is actually living it. Scholar Kavita Hayton states that blogs are the “perfect platforms” (204) for life writing because the author never needs to face their audience. The are therefore are more likely to speak openly and honestly, creating an online self that is similar-if not identical- to their offline identities (204). The immediacy and accessibility of the posts are also seen traits that creates a sense of honesty about the blogger’s persona, as they”blur the distinction between online and offline lives” (McNeill 25). Readers would then gather a feeling of being presented with an authentic example of the blogger’s reality, and that the stories being divulged are reminiscent of those told between friends in reality. Bloggers are exposing this side of themselves willingly and without agenda or ‘building’ of that persona to appeal to a certain audience, as may be done in professional writing or television. What is written about is truly their lives; the disconnect between gender equality shown on their blogs is truly occurring in the real world.


Food blogs offer a medium of celebration and interaction for food-loving users. They are great sources of escape for foodies around the world and form the basis for a strong online community. However, their domestically-based features feed into stereotypes that uphold women’s gender roles as cooks and caregivers, which strengthens the scholarly argument that food blogs hinder true gender equality on the domestic front. This is seen in the commentary by the users and the personas that they present. Food blogs and it’s surrounding community is an enjoyable activity for food-lovers of all kinds, but when analysed deeper, the online food blog community holds a lot more than just recipes.

WORKS CITED


Alex. “Web Log Comment.” The Pioneer Woman Cooks. 31 May 2012. Web. 31 October 2012.


Campbell, Delilah. “Housewives’ Choice?” Trouble and Strife 42 (2001): n. pag. Web.


Chessey, Deborah. “Web Log Comment.” The Pioneer Woman Cooks. N.p., 11 April 2012. Web. 31 October 2012.


Hayton, Kavita. “New Expressions Of The Self: Autobiographical Opportunities On The Internet.” Journal Of Media Practice 10.2&3 (2009): 199-213. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Sept. 2012.


Mcneill, Laurie. “Teaching An Old Genre New Tricks: The Diary On The Internet.”Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 26.1 (2003): 24. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Sept. 2012.


Tasty Kitchen Blog: Meet the Member!. Tasty Kitchen. 15 November 2010. Web. 31 October 2012.


Tina. About. Mommy’s Kitchen. Web. 15 November 2012.

Blogging Smart: A Look at Meggannn's Tumblr

 

A guest post by Jessica Knettle

Any of these look familiar to you? They’re a few of the biggest fandoms on the internet, things that appear on Meggannn’s tumblr quite often. Meggannn’s tumblr contains a plethora of stereotypical internet things. Fangirlish ravings about various characters from anime, photosets from a live action series, funny gifs responding to silly posts. My research suggests that blogs are always a work in progress, and they are constantly being shaped by the owner of the blog and other members of the community. That was the case as I observed Meggannn’s Tumblr as she posted “ask me…” things and showed asks, which are sort of like comments except the owner of the blog can decide whether they‘re seen or not and can be anonymous or show the asker‘s username, which is up to the asker.

Here's an ask with the user's name displayed

And here's an anonymous ask

One of the key elements on tumblr is the method of communication between the blog owner and the followers of the blogger. In Making Connections: Readings in Relational Communications by Kathleen M. Galvin and Pamela J. Cooper, they discuss the importance of communication in “classrooms and offices, at kitchen tables and on athletic fields,” (4) but many communication aspects can be applied to the online world. Galvin and Cooper state “effective communicators are those who are able to select the most appropriate…messages for specific other persons and who are able to interpret the intended message” (5). This is literally shown when members of the tumblr community know each other through mutual “follows” (the act of following someone entails all of their reblogs to show up on your dashboard) and possible communication outside of tumblr send anonymous asks to one another and try to get the person to guess which follower it is. Megan has done this on Minuiko’s and Viria’s tumblrs. The ask usually contains some sort of compliment and an obscure clue, making the blogger rely on what they know about the other person’s online mannerisms to guess who sent the ask.

Another idea Gavin and Cooper suggested is the process of communication being established. Gavin and Cooper say that “a relationship’s communication pattern begins at the first moment of contact” (5). In the case of Tumblr, the first contact is the act of following another blog. It’s simple enough, just typing a URL into a little box and pressing enter. But there are a lot of text posts that people including Megan reblog indicating that it’s a huge step to follow a blog that you’ve been “stalking” (periodically checking without actually following) for a long time, because you begin to admire the blog and start to idolize and possibly even mimic the blog. But once someone follows the blog, then the two bloggers have the opportunity to become good friends, a common occurrence as long as they have more than just fandoms in common

The idea of a blog being a work in progress came from Digital Fandom: New Media Studies by Paul Booth (2010). Although this seemed to be a rather simple notion, the more I thought about it, the more this idea made sense and had deeper meaning. It agrees with the way Meggannn‘s blog is set up, perhaps more than any of the others I’ve seen. She began reblogging mostly Starkidpotter gifs, Yu-Gi-Oh! fan fiction, and Harry Potter pictures, not putting her input into many of the posts.

One of many Starkidpotter gifs Megan has reblogged

Now she has over 4187 pages of posts, 10 posts per page, and she quite often puts her opinion somewhere in them, whether they’re in the tags or as an added comment. However, most of the posts she adds input to are not ones bound to spark controversy. When they do, it’s unintentional and she sometimes seems embarrassed by it in hindsight. She’s come a long way just within her own text posts and commentary. Since gathering a tumblr following, she often gets questions in her ask box, anonymous and public, and the questions are sometimes of a personal nature. She’s divulged where she goes to school, posted a small video thanking all the people that follow her for putting up with any inane drabble on her blog, she occasionally complains about scheduling/housing issues at her college. They allow her followers to understand her more while building her online persona.

Megan shows many intellectual characteristic on her tumblr. “Fans Behaving Badly: Anime Metafandom, Brutal Criticism, and the Intellectual Fan” (2010) by Kathryn Dunlap and Carissa Wolf discusses the ideas proposed by Matt Hills, including the idea of a fan-as-intellectual (270).  Megan posts social commentary that includes racism, sexism, politics, and women’s rights, and approaches the topics with care. In her FAQ there is a section titled “Where can I find your fics or essays/analysis/articles?” (meggannn.tumblr.com). It includes all of her intellectual musings concerning Fullmetal Alchemist, an anime that is surprisingly intellectually oriented in the first place, and Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra, American takes on anime but address a lot of controversial topics that most animated shows geared toward a younger audience don’t dare broach. Therefore she is embracing the persona of an intellectual, though some people only see it as her talking about stuff. The ones that acknowledge the fact that she is blogging intellectually submit asks and reblog her stuff with analytic comments added on, whether the additions are positive or negative depend on the person’s opinion. She also has fandom commentary of other people on tumblr, which is telling because it means she values the input of other members of the community, not relying wholly on her own ideas. That is also an area that allows her blog to grow, and for her to grow as an individual.

Megan’s reaction to a derogatory post about religion also lends to her persona of an intellectual, though in a roundabout way. She made a short text post on the subject, and people began posting asks, becoming increasingly aggressive, often anonymous. On tumblr, people use tags to organize their posts. They are able to search through everything tagged the same, and can be more easily found. The tags were very atypical, things like “ugh I’m sorry I didn’t mean to rant in the tags…” and “but hoooly crap now people are sending me messages with ‘religion is stupid anyway’ (meggannn.tumblr.com). There were no commonly used tags in it, so it is probably impossible for anyone but her to find it without going through every page of posts. She won’t be using those tags for any other posts, meaning she just used them to convey her point. The tags sounded aggressive, showing she has strong feelings about the subject. In the tags some of what I interpret as her own faith shows when she says religion is not rational, that it is “beyond reason.” She then ends her tag rant with “lol okay,” which is a huge, unprofessional sounding switch from her previous tags that were not very professional either, but sounded less informal and had a point. The purpose may have been her trying to lighten the mood, maybe it was a way to show the pointlessness of the issue, or maybe she didn’t know how to end the post without offending more people (meggannn.tumblr.com).

The post discussed above and below

She questioned the approach of the people asking her questions anonymously and aggressively, according to her proving her point about “asshole atheists” (meggannn.tumblr.com). Her point was somewhat in the actual post, although it is short. Her issue was not with people giving their opinions on her opinion, it was them doing it anonymously. She said people were debating “controversy for the sake of controversy,” (meggannn.tumblr.com) just stirring up trouble without having the courage to show who they were. That distressed her more than anything. While the post and the tags were erratic and a large digression from her usual text posts, she stated her opinions effectively in the context of her argument, proving that her approach was intellectual and appropriate for the situation at hand.

Megan is an entertaining blogger, perhaps even a typical one, but her blog has grown and matured, probably just as she has. Being constant works in progress, blogs are unpredictable. They are able to inspire, create controversy, ultimately making people laugh (I know I do rather often). And although there is the occasional animosity sparked because of a remark gone wrong, the social commentary conversations that are begun are often insightful. Her blog title is Could Be Dangerous for a reason. A blog being thought of as a work in progress is indicative of the human life, always building, always growing, and always improving.

Works Cited
Booth, Paul. Digital Fandom: New Media Studies. New York, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2010. 43-46. Print.
Dunlap, Kathryn, and Carissa Wolf. “Fans Behaving Badly: Anime Metafandom, Brutal Criticism, And The Intellectual Fan.” Mechademia 5.(2010): 267-283. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 16 Sept. 2012.
Galvin, Kaathleen M., Pamela J. Cooper. Making Connections: Readings in Relational Communication. Los Angeles, California: Roxbury Publishing Company, 2006. 4-5. Print.
Could be dangerous. (26 Sept. 2012). Retrieved from meggannn.tumblr.com.

Foundations of Support: What Creates Success in Online Educational Communities

The internet is changing the way key issues, such as support for new teachers, are being addressed. 

A guest post by Sara Postic

“The hardest part of my first year, was feeling alone. I was one of 8 kindergarten teachers and yet none were focused on child development. They had stacks of hand-outs that they were giving to these wonderful kindergarten kids, with little concern for their cognitive development. It was a sad and difficult time for me. But I stuck it out!” Lisa Dabbs, moderator of an online community for new teachers, wrote this as a description of the hardest aspect of being a new teacher. Isolation permeates the experiences of many new teachers during their first year of work. Often, teachers find themselves at polar ends of the spectrum as far as support. In her article, Deborah Bieler describes teachers as either “emphasizing the rich benefits of community-centered faculty life [or] bemoaning the difficulties of an isolative faculty culture” (Bieler, 46). The internet may be a way to help combat this issue. New teachers use online communities to battle common feelings of isolation by starting conversations just like this one. While there are many resources on the internet, not all of them equal. For an online educational community to be successful, it must contain the right combination of social elements. Scholars researching online communities each have their own perspective of what precise combination of components are important in creating a successful educational Community of Practice (CoP) online. Overall, the underlying factor among the ideas of these scholars is the concept of support. I would argue for an online community to be successful, it must have a strong supportive element among all social factors.
Online Community Website: Edutopia and TeachAde

Picture link of Edutopia's community page.

Organizationally, the structure of the website contributes significantly to overall community success. For example, the level of community present in a website can change depending on whether it has many small groups or a few large groups. In general, I have found that the supportive sense of community tends to dissolve when groups of people are too divided. TeachAde.com and Edutopia.com illustrate this concept very well. TeachAde contains approximately 600 groups on its website whereas Edutopia has only 20. Yet, all of the groups on Edutopia have active discussions with comments and TeachAde contains mostly ghost town groups. These groups have only one or two discussions and often have no comments. Yeping Li and Chunxia Qi expand on the importance of organization in online communities. They state in their article that the community they researched “relied on its well-structured process and organization” to improve the effectiveness of teachers (Li and Qi 843).
Structurally, the separation of the blog section from the community section on Edutopia assists with organization because it allows users to understand the purpose of each section. There are important distinctions between the blogs on Edutopia and the community section. In the community section, there is a moderator, but anyone who is part of the group is able to post discussion questions. The moderator ensures that discussion continues in a constructive way. Nevertheless, the moderator is not the only person who can post a topic for discussion on the community page. Anyone can post and anyone can comment which allows more people to have prevalence in the community and increases how interactive the community is. This concept builds on Silverman’s findings that “participants’ learning was correlated with the centrality of a teacher (the number of posts generated by that teacher), provided the posts functioned dialogically through Doing Mathematics or Questioning/Challenging” by providing more community members the opportunity to generate more posts and thus gain prominence (64). Since centrality has a direct relationship with participant learning, having more prominent members greatly assists a community in positively influencing teachers.
Twitter contains an active educational community as well. For example, #ntchat created by Lisa Dabbs provides a method of communication. Interestingly, the types of communication change for the same group of people based on the difference in social media. The first major cause manifests itself in the structure of the different media with Titter limiting each Tweet to only 140 characters and Edutopia imposing no such limits. In addition, the hash tag discussion format reaches a wider audience than the community page or blog because more people utilize Twitter. Also, on Twitter user confinements of only one discussion per post do not exist. The Twitter user can communicate with multiple communities the same message by including multiple hash tags in one tweet.  Even though the hash tag is named with the thought of conversation, many of the tweets are links to other blogs or advice such as a link to “12 Things Kids Want From Their Teachers” (We Are Teachers). Instead of creating a method of discussing issues, #ntchat contains teacher tweeted tidbits such as “Great teachers…teach the student, not the lesson” (Blankenship). This community provides a method for live collaboration and allows many people to join the group. These distinctions illustrate the vast impact of material presentation.

Support must be present.

Indicators of sense of community also show the level of support. Moreover, sense of community directly impacts teacher effectiveness. By examining the interrelated social factors which impact teacher effectiveness, the connections between “Sense of Community” and “Satisfaction with NETwork experience” to “Effectiveness of Teachers” prove to be crucial. I-Chun Tsai examines this relationship in depth in his article. Since the goal of the specific community analyzed in the article involved creating a collaborative environment to “overcome the current disconnection between pre-service teacher education and in-service teaching practice,” Tsai’s findings become especially applicable in examining online communities for new teachers (Tsai 274).He defines sense of community as “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together” (qtd .in Tsai 272). This definition of sense of community illustrates the inherent need for support in creating a strong sense of community by emphasizing the commitment and acceptance factors of community. The direct connection to satisfaction with NETwork experience highlights the importance of sense of community further (Tsai 282). Overall, each of these social factors play a key role in influencing teacher effectiveness.
When examining a CoP for any of the above factors, one must consider how each of the elements mold together to create support. In an emailed interview, Sandra Petersen, an author of an article on a new teacher community she participated in, summarized the impact of support in a community in this way: “I could relate to their frustrations and problems as new professors, and we could celebrate our successes together, as well… I trusted the advice of my on-line community and found it very helpful to post particular problems or situations that were puzzling to me. They were wonderful in offering advice and encouragement.” (Petersen). This is her description of the major reason why she stayed in the online community. It does not focus on lesson plans; rather, it focuses on the support she found. In addition, it highlights the trust among the group members. This illustrates Tsai’s connection between satisfaction and sense of community since Petersen states that the major reason her experience was successful was the supportive aspect of community. By being able to attach value through the support received, satisfaction is increased which in turn positively impacts teacher effectiveness. The common denominator among all of these factors is support.  When a CoP can create a true environment of support, it is an invaluable resource for teachers.

References

Bieler, Deborah. "What New Teachers Want From Colleagues." Educational Leadership 69.8 (2012): 46-49. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Oct. 2012.

Blankenship, Shawn. Blankenship_S. “Great teachers teach at the speed of learning. They teach the student, not the lesson. #edchat #ntchat.” 3 Nov. 2012, 6:50 p.m. Tweet.

Li, Yeping, and Chunxia Qi. “Online Study Collaboration To Improve Teachers’ Expertise In Instructional Design In Mathematics.” Zdm 43.6/7 (2011): 833-845. Education Research Complete. Web. 19 Sept. 2012.

“New Teacher Connections.” N.p. Edutopia. 13 Oct. 2009. Web. 28 Oct. 2012.
"#ntchat." Twitter. Edutopia, 28 Oct. 2012. Web. 28 Oct. 2012.

Petersen, Sandra. Personal Interview. 29 Oct. 2012.

Silverman, Jason. "Exploring The Relationship Between Teachers Prominence In Online Collaboration And The Development Of Mathematical Content Knowledge For Teaching." Journal Of Technology & Teacher Education 20.1 (2012): 47-69. Education Research Complete. Web. 19 Sept. 2012

TeachAde – Free Educational Resources for Teachers.Ed Tech Ventures, 2012. Web. 28 Oct. 2012.

Tsai, I-Chun. “Understanding Social Nature Of An Online Community Of Practice For Learning To Teach.” Journal Of Educational Technology & Society 15.2 (2012): 271-285. Education Research Complete. Web. 20 Sept. 2012.

We Are Teachers. “RT @eyeoneducation: 12 Things Kids Want From Their Teachers http://ow.ly/eWxSI  @angelamaiers #edchat

Breaches in Etiquette Help Communities Develop Deeper Connections

Guest Post By: Samantha Burke


You would expect in the forums of Judge My Ride to find that breaches in etiquette are deleted by moderators, but instead the breaches in etiquette that occur actually develop the community connections. Judge My Ride (JMR) is an anomaly in the online community world because in their forums, a post is recognized by either a single flame or two flames. While flames are generally considered negative in the online world because they are hurtful or derogatory comments or posts, in the JMR world a flame means your post is on fire because it gets a lot of traffic. The scholarly community believes that breaches in etiquette would harm a community and cause it to collapse, but after doing further research into the forums of JMR it appeared that the breaches in etiquette caused them to grow and develop.

JMR is an online community in which members post videos, photos or questions about their riding or their horse or an experience they had. There are recognized 'judges' who are accredited members of the equine industry who comment on posts and then there are the every day members who also comment and critique. Where judges offer their critique on the formal part of the site:


The forums are all every day members connecting and interacting with each other. The forums are a different aspect of the community in which the members interact more as if they were friends off the internet. The community members show their true feelings or release stress that they've been holding or discuss problems that they've encountered that others can relate to. The most interesting aspect of this is that more often than not, the posts that gain the most attention are those that have some aspect of breaking etiquette.

Etiquette in online communities can be different from that in the real world. When posting online there isn't the inflection that one gains from face to face interaction so things that may normally be okay because of tone are not because the tone is lost in the online world. The biggest breach of etiquette on JMR is when people discuss problems with trainers or barns. Generally is is expected that when problems occur it will be kept within the barn and the people who were actually involved, but many of the most visited posts are the ones that discuss an issue with a trainer. Take for example, woahpony's post about her experience while her trainer was away:


This post got 39 replies and 400 views. In the JMR world this makes the post worthy of a double flame. Another post by dkatz got 22 replies and 485 views:


What makes these posts so much more popular than a post about a new saddle or new horse?
The answer becomes apparent when the posts are looked at side by side. People like to talk about themselves and they especially like to discuss problems that they have because their opinions can be validated. Posts that have something that causes a reaction amongst the users will gain more attention than a post that has no edge to it. This applies outside of the internet as well. People like to discuss topics that create strong emotions and opinions. In the case of JMR, sometimes this release of emotion can be seen as breaching standard calls of etiquette. This example shows the effect of discussing negative experiences with a barn or trainer. Here is a screenshot of a post by Dkatz entitled Worst Barns:



Some parts of society consider a post like Dkatz's to be a breach of etiquette because it is complaining to random strangers about incidents that they were not involved in. This kind of breach in etiquette can actually help build a community because it creates discussion and makes people want to talk to each other. Her post currently has 22 replies and over 400 views which shows that her post is garnering attention from the other members of the site. Jenny Preece argued in her her 2004 article “Etiquette Online: From Nice toNecessary,” that in order for a community to be successful, it has to become“self-regulating.” A “self-regulating community” is one in which members of thecommunity gently correct other members for their behavior so that themoderators don’t have to be following every post all the time (59). This post creates an example of this because another one of the members took offense to the post and decided to correct Dkatz.



While Dana did not mention names of barns or trainers or even horses, CaseySpragens still felt that this post was inappropriate, but went about correcting it in a way that was not helpful to the community. It would be easier to take Spragens seriously if she had used proper grammar and spelling, but since she didn't, she is in effect, making herself look immature and childish. Her misspelling of "rode" and "aweful" takes away any sense of intelligence and shows her as lacking in credibility. This shows that while breaches in etiquette may offend some members, they are not always the sign of the death of a community. While Spragens took offense to the post many other members saw it as a way to release frustrations that they had about barns that they'd ridden or boarded at as evidenced by the continued replies.

Part of the reason that these sorts of posts are so popular is that they feed the innate narcissism in people. As Nathan DeWall, Laura Buffardi, Ian Bonser, and Keith Campbell who argued in their article, “Narcissism and implicit attention seeking: Evidence from linguistic analyses of social networking and online presentation,” a “crucial component of narcissism is the need to be the
center of attention,” which is evident in the forums because the most popular posts are those that put people in the spotlight (58). The members of JMR like to talk about themselves just like people outside of the internet like to talk about themselves and when a post allows people the chance to discuss experiences that they've had, they go all out. The posts that can be considered a breach of etiquette are posts that create strong reactions among members and those posts are what truly develop a community because it allows the members to form bonds with each other.

As Spragens shows with her use of Dana's first name, the members get to know each other through use of the forums because they begin interacting on a regular basis. CatherineNorman is known as 'Cat' in the forums because she is a regular poster and the members begin to recognize her. ValofFrance is known as Val by many members because she is open and friendly to everyone. The forums allow bonds to form outside of the real world. Although most of the members will never interact outside of the internet, they still get to know each other and they develop relationships with one another fostered by breaches in etiquette because they allow them to release emotion and comiserate over similar experience. Diane Conrad furthers this in her 2002 article “Inhibition, Integrity And Etiquette Among Online Learners: The Art Of Niceness,” with the argument that the first step in building a connection is learning other members' real names which helps establish "credibility and authenticity" (199). The connections that form between members in the forums are what lead to the use of first names and further development of relationships that carry across the site. The well known members almost become a family and they form a network that others go to for advice and help. Val is one such members who always has people posting photos for her, like this one:



Even members who are new to JMR know of Val. Just goes to show that she is an important part of the community. Posts are directly addressed to her as opposed to the judges because the members see her as being personable and kind in her crtique.

Judge My Ride is in some ways just like every other community online, and in others it is completely different. Part of what holds it together is the fact that all the members have one thing in common: their love of horses. This allows members to interact and discuss and connect with each other in a way that is generally only found offline. JMR allows breaches in etiquette to build the community and further its reach into the online world instead of letting them break it. For those of you who want to contribute in forums or comments, be conscious of other's feelings, but don't censor yourself too much, because sometimes your breach in etiquette can grow to be a discussion beyond your imagination.

Works Cited

Conrad, Dianne. "Inhibition, Integrity and Etiquette Among Online Learners: The Art Of Niceness." Distance Education 23.2 (2002): 197-212. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Sept. 2012.

DeWall, Nathan, Laura Buffardi, Ian Bonser, and Keith Campbell. "Narcissism and implicit attention seeking: Evidence from linguistic analyses of social networking and online presentation." Personality and Individual Differences 51 (2011): n. pag. EBSCOhost. Web. 17 Nov. 2012.

Dkatz. “Worst Barns.” Judge My Ride. N.P., October 7 2012. Web. November 4 2012.

Mgunn4795. "Val Please Judge!" Judge My Ride. N.P., November 17 2012. Web. November 17 2012.

Preece, Jenny. "ETIQUETTE ONLINE: From NICE To NECESSARY." Communications Of The ACM 47.4 (2004): 56-61. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Sept. 2012.

Spragens, Casey. “Re: Worst Barns.” Judge My Ride. N.P., October 8 2012. Web. November 4 2012.

Can Format and Site Limitations Create Inaccurate User Representation on Online Dating Sites?

 

A Guest Post By Angela Halstead

 
There is a good chance that a majority of these nine users are lying in some aspect of their profile, but is it their fault?  Not all dishonesty found in online dating profiles is intentional on the part of the user.  According to Catalina L. Toma and Jeffrey T. Hancock online dating sites are communities “where users have distinct self-presentational goals and where the medium of communication shapes the expression of these goals” (336).  These online dating communities have been subjects of scrutiny from multiple scholarly sources when it comes to the honesty of the information presented on these sites, and validate that misrepresentations are indeed prevalent in the online dating community.  The “medium of communication” places limitations on how users are able to present themselves.  Match.com’s profile format tends to control user expression by not providing certain answer options, as well as providing too many choices with different connotations for the same trait and deciding for users what characteristics can be considered “deal breakers.”
           

  The format of Match.com controls the expression of users through the answer choices that the site provides during the process of creating a profile  In “Self-Presentation in Online Personals the Role of Anticipated Future Interaction, Self-Disclosure, and Perceived Successin Internet Dating” (2006)  Jennifer L. Gibbs, Nicole B. Ellison and Rebecca D. Heino study the effects of self-disclosure on online dating, the amount and type of personal information users disclose, how honest the information is, and how it affects self-perceived success (154-60).  The study used approximately 350 Match.com users, and 40% of these users admitted to misrepresenting their marital status (169-70).  What the article fails to consider is that in the profile editor on this online dating site under the “relationships” category the only response options are “never married,” “divorced,” “widowed,” or “separated” (Match.com).  I found no option for someone to say they are currently married or in an open marriage.  So while 40% of the sample of Match.com users admitted that the marital status on their profile was inaccurate, it is likely that some portion of these were due to the fact that there simply was no way for them to be honest, as “married” was not a response option in this category.            
               I found in the About Match.com section of the website that site frequently referred to its users as “singles,” indicating that this is the demographic they aim for (Match.com).  Perhaps Match.com does not offer “married” as an option because it does not want to be seen, or used, as a site where married people seek additional partners.
           

Match.com controls users’ emphasis on within their profiles by only allowing them to clarify or expand upon their answers in certain categories. For example in the categories ethnicity, faith, and career users have the option to expand upon their answers in a comment box (usually in 250 characters or less). However, other categories such as body type and political views do not have a comment box where users can expand upon their answers (Match.com). The site decides what is important enough to expand upon, not the users. This may create misrepresentation in another way; if users cannot tell from a person’s profile what is actually important to them it may cause them to have trouble connecting with the person, as they may have an inaccurate picture of who they are

               Match.com also presents too many options for users in some instances; some of the terms provided may have very similar meanings, but with different connotations. This may cause the different perspectives of the profile creator and the profile user to create a sense of misrepresentation even if it was unintentional. The male response options for “body type” are “no answer,” “slender,” “about average,” “athletic and toned,” “heavy set,” “a few extra pounds,” and “stocky.” For females the response options for “body type” are more numerous: “no answer,” “slender,” “big and beautiful,” “about average,” “curvy,” “athletic and toned,” “full-figured,” “heavyset,” “a few extra pounds,” or “stocky” (Match.com). The difference between many of these descriptors is subject to perspective. In many cases the response would depend on the person’s self-confidence when it comes to their body, not necessarily a realistic portrayal, whether it is done purposefully or not. What one user who creates a profile considers“a few extra pounds” another user who views the profile might consider “heavy-set.” 

 

                The options provided by Match.com cause perspective to be an issue in the process of viewer profile analysis; this difference between intention and perception is magnified when multiple descriptors are available with similar meanings.  The article “Profile as Promises: A Framework for Conceptualizing Veracity in Online Dating Self-Presentations” (2011) by Nicole B. Ellison, Jeffrey T. Hancock, and Catalina L. Toma conduct research regarding the dishonest disclosure in online dating.  One individual in this study admitted to having a bit of a “tummy” but said that he still entered his profile body type description as “athletic.”  He explained this saying, “I still have muscles even if they are covered” (54).  However, there is a good chance someone who views his profile and sees that he has put his body type as “athletic” would feel he was being dishonest because of his “tummy.”  What he considers “athletic” another could consider “stocky,” “average,” or “a few extra pounds.”
           

   If misrepresentation is not due to the format of the profile editor then, then it would be caused by users lying in order to represent themselves in an attractive light or their perception of themselves is not completely accurate.  In their article “What Lies Beneath: The Linguistic Traces of Deception in Online Dating” (2012) Catalina L. Toma and Jeffrey T. Hancock define these two concepts as “desirable responding” and “self-awareness,” reporting these as the two main problems with self-reporting in these communities (15). 
              Even within these user-created misrepresentations, Match.com still manages to influence users through seemingly helpful resources, such as the Dating Articles and Advice page that contain articles written to help users be successful on the website. One article, “Which Profile Caught My Eye” (2011) by Julie Taylor is aimed at cluing users in on what grabs the attention of potential partners; she gives advice on everything from profile pictures, to hobbies, to trendy cultural tidbits that might entice viewers (Match.com). But just because it's attractive on a profile does not mean it is necessarily true; what are the chances that every Match.com user is a fan of pop culture?

                The method Match.com provides for users to represent their physical appearance and weight is qualitative not quantitative, making answers more subjective to opinion.  The article “Online Dating: A Critical Analysis from the Perspective of Psychological Science” (2012) by Eli J. Finkel, Paul W. Eastwick, Benjamin R. Karney, Harry T. Reis, and Susan Sprecher say that when Toma, Hancock, and Ellison in 2008 compared the profiles of a sample of online daters with average national characteristics their findings indicated some degree of dishonesty within this type of community.  Women reported weighing 5.4 to 22.9 pounds less than the national average weight depending on their age group and 1 inch taller, the older the age the greater the discrepancy (15).  If there is a numeric option for entering weight the user can be blamed for blatantly misrepresenting themselves and lying about their weight and physical appearance; however, Match.com uses qualitative responses, descriptors, versus a more quantitative response, such as a numeric weight.  The height, on the other hand, is asked for in numeric form, so any misrepresentation of height is  the fault of the user.
           

“Deal breakers” are traits or habits that a person is not willing to tolerate in a partner, and for a viewer to be aware of these the site must provide a means for users to identify these specific characteristics as unacceptable. Being unable to identify these “deal breakers” could be taken as an inaccurate representation of self by a viewer who later discovers they possess unacceptable qualities, which they were unaware of. In the profile editor of this specific site certain lifestyle aspects have the option to be marked as “deal breakers”.  This includes smoking and drinking habits, current children, the desire to have children in the future, and relationships. Preferences are asked of the categories “language,” “faith,” “ethnicity,” and “education level,” but none of these can be flagged marked as “deal breakers” as certain lifestyle aspects can be (Match.com).  This does not allow users to signify any other traits, preferences, or lifestyle choices they may not be willing to tolerate in a relationship; another way in which the format of this website’s profile may create an inaccurate picture of a user.

              While studies have shown that members of online dating communities have admitted to purposely misrepresenting themselves, not all of what users perceive as dishonest representation on these sites is intentional.  The format of the profiles provided by these sites may prevent users from accurately and honestly representing themselves to others within the community.  While some of these limitations may have simply been a format error on the part of the website, others may have been intentional; such as the site not allowing for users to identify ethnicity or faith as “deal breakers.”  In these cases Match.com may not have wanted to become a community segregated by race or religion so they did not provide the option for users to mark these traits as unacceptable, or “deal breakers.”  In the case of not providing answer such as “married” the site may not have wanted to be presented as a place where married people could seek additional partners, as they did not want to be seen as a means for cheating. So while Match.com may prevent users from expressing certain preferences through the construction of their profiles, this may be due to how this particular website wishes to be seen and used within this online community;  however, some of these limitations placed on user expression may lead to perceived dishonesty.

Works Cited:

Ellison, Nicole B., Jeffrey T. Hancock, and Catalina L. Toma. "Profile as Promise: a Framework for Conceptualizing Veracity in Online Dating Self-Presentations." New Media & Society 14.1 (2012): 45-62. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Oct. 2012. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=71964406&site=ehost-live

Gibbs, Jennifer L., Nicole B. Ellison, and Rebecca D. Heino. "Self-Presentation in Online Personals the Role of Anticipated Future Interaction, Self-Disclosure, and Perceived Success in Internet Dating." Communication Research 33.2 (2006): 152-177. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Sept. 2012. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=20492508&site=ehost-live

Match.com Profile Editor. Match.com. 9 April 2012. Web. 12 Oct. 2012. www.match.com

Susan Sprecher, et al. "Online Dating: A Critical Analysis from the Perspective of Psychological Science." Psychological Science in the Public Interest (Sage Publications Inc.) 13.1 (2012): 3-66. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Sept. 2012.

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=73043032&site=ehost-live

Taylor, Julie. “Which Profile Caught My Eye.” Match.com. 2011. Web. 14 Nov. 2012. http://www.match.com/magazine/article/5353/Which-Profile-Caught-My-Eye/

Toma, Catalina L., and Jeffrey T. Hancock. "What Lies Beneath: The Linguistic Traces of Deception in Online Dating Profiles." Journal of Communication 62.1 (2012): 78-97. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Oct. 2012. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=71243259&site=ehost-live

 

Online Autobiography--Web 1.0: Same Old Genre Issues

In Writing Your Life Story, But Not Necessarily Your Autobiography (2002) Elizabeth Bezant noted, “[F]ew autobiographies are printed by traditional publishing houses. And often the ones they do accept are picked because the story is exceptional or the writer is well known” (Bezant). Digital versions of autobiography on the Internet, of course, are not bound to the editorial discretion of established publishing houses. Nor are online “personal homepages”[i] constrained by the costs associated with print or the problems of distribution. A writer needs only a computer, a word-processing program, and a live Internet connection to post her digital autobiography. But as Bezant’s title implies (i.e., writing a life story as opposed to an autobiography), digital media presents new challenges for the potential autobiographer. For instance, if answering the question, “What is autobiography?”[ii] remains problematic for scholars of print autobiography, the intertextual nature of hypertext complicates the matter further. Hypertext introduces many dynamic qualities not found in print including intertextuality. In defining intertextuality,[iii] I rely upon Jonathan Culler’s definition in The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction (1981):

Literary works are to be considered not as autonomous entities, ‘organic wholes,’ but as intertextual (emphasis mine) constructs: sequences which have meaning in relation to other texts which they take up, cite, parody, refute, or generally transform. A text can be read only in relation to other texts….the autonomy of texts is a misleading notion….” (38, 103).

One such early online autobiography that exemplifies the inclusion of intertextual hypertext elements is Justin Allyn Hall’s “Justin's Links from the Underground—autobio.” A pioneer of web logging (blogging) and perhaps even its “founding father” according to Jeffrey Rosen of The New York Times (2004), Hall describes himself as “writ[ing] and speak[ing] on years of personal experience with digital culture and electronic entertainment” and “search[ing] for intimacy and stimulation in technology” (Hall). Now a 38 year-old living in San Francisco, California, Hall began writing his personal web “homepage” online in January 1994 as a Swarthmore College student at the age of 19 when the general public had little access to the Internet and little knowledge of the potential of hypertext. Already aware of the dialogical essence of constructing a self online, he declares, “All of information space is a shared multiplayer adventure” (Hall). While Hall claims to have retired from writing his autobiography in 2005, he still maintains a prodigious online presence (as of July 2009) with no less than three social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, Friendster), a professional networking site (Linkedin), three weblogs (Justinhall, MyBlogLog, just in teractive) an image sharing account (flickr), a company website (GameLayers.com), a Twitter account, and numerous additional active websites. Though he has recently shifted his creative energies away from his autobiography to a process he calls passively multiplayer online gaming (PMOG),[iv] Hall’s original website “Justin's Links from the Underground—autobio” serves as an archetypal example of the ways in which early (pre Web 2.0) authors of online autobiography incorporate hypertext elements in their writing.

In a hyperlinked webpage under the subheader, “why [sic] the web?” Hall asks a question so familiar to the history of the autobiographical impulse that could have been uttered by St. Augustine himself—“Why put details about your personal life online?” His answer reveals both an early if perhaps utopian understanding of the Internet’s potential:

"What would you rather read? A pamphlet? Or a heartfelt tale, or personal perspective? The web will reflect humanity if we put our lives online. Putting our lives online does not mean leading our lives online, it is about utilizing unprecedented sharing. We interact in the real world, and we use cyberspace to collaborate and share and conjure new possibilities. Do we want to see ourselves, joys and sorrows, reflected in cyberspace, or do we want an easier mall? Not that both won't exist, but when you sit down to craft your page, take into account which you'd rather see…. Would
you rather they read your resume, or your autobiography (emphasis mine)?" (Hall)

Using Hall’s autobiographical homepage as a prototypical example, an appropriate answer to his last rhetorical question might be yet another question: Could you tell the difference between the resume and autobiography, i.e., could the two genres be easily separated? In “Justin’s Links…,” Hall’s incorporation of so-called “work-related” genres, i.e., resumes, cover letters, letters of recommendation, course syllabi, audio files and written transcripts of professional speeches, et al., certainly blurs the boundaries between these autobiographical “fragments” and the autobiographical narrative.

[i] The phrase “personal homepages” is used interchangeably in popular culture with the terms homesite, homepage, personal webpage, and personal website when referring to online autobiography, hypertext autobiography, and digital autobiography. While having multiple terms may present problems of referentiality, these terms refer to the autobiographical texts in online environments.

[ii] Certainly, this question is still problematic, but as Susanna Egan notes in Mirror Talk: Genres of Crisis in Contemporary Autobiography (1999), it is a topic that has largely “been theorized out of existence” along with the idea of the ontological self (9).

[iii] In addition to Culler, for more information on the concept of intertextuality see also Julia Kristeva’s Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art (1980) and Gunhild Agger’s Intertextuality Revisited: Dialogues and Negotiations in Media Studies (1999). For a critique of intertextuality, see William Irwin’s “Against Intertextuality” (2004).

[iv] According to Justin Allyn Hall, Passively Multiplayer Online Gaming or PMOG “is a system for turning user data into ongoing play. Using computer and mobile phone surveillance, a user and their unique history. These resulting avatars can be viewed online, and they interact with other avatars online. Examples of data: web sites visited, email addresses, chat handles, contents of email or messaging, contents of word processed documents, digital images, digital video, video game moves.”

Dr. Kristine Blair, Ph.D., Chair and Professor of English at Bowling Green State University, will present “Shaky Foundations: Constructing Faculty and Student Professional Identities in Web 2.0 Spaces” from 3:30-5pm, Wednesday, Nov. 14, in the AMU North Multipurpose Room.

Dr. Blair has a distinguished career in the field of digital rhetoric, language, and literacy. She has published many scholarly manuscripts, textbooks, book reviews and journal articles and has served as editor and/or on the editorial boards of some of the most prominent publications in her field including but not limited to Computers and Composition and Kairos.

For more on this event, please go to this link:

http://www.findlay.edu/newsroom/Pages/2012-11/Web-2-0-Spaces.aspx