An ethnographic look at bloggers

I was tempted to comment at the weekend about the English women who was fired due to blogging about her work. However, the story was soon done to death, so I gave it a miss. There are also far too many articles already written on this story - many can be found here. The Daily Telegraph even asked my opinion on 'professionals' who blog.

There was also a range of articles about how to blog and keep your job - see this particular one, for example. I should add it to my collection of how to blog safely about work.

Instead, I'd like to draw attention to a Master of Arts thesis about bloggers. It's called - Unstable texts: An ethnographical look at how bloggers and their audience negotiate self-representation, authenticity and norm formation by Amanda B. Lenhart, B.A.

I've not had chance to even have a quick glance at it, but the main thing is it's covering new ground and lot's more research needs to be done on blogging.

Anyone willing to take part in an on-line survey about the use of work computer/lap top please click here.

2 comments:

Spike said...

Good thesis link. Ta.

Jystar said...

sorry for the late comment, I just came across the post.

actually, this isn't entirely new ground, as in Lenhart not the first to explore blogging in this way; she cites, among others, Nardi, Schiano, et al.'s ethnographic work studying blogs and bloggers. it may, however, be the case that her work is the first to delve into the topic quite so deeply.