![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Public, Personal, Private
Jun. 4th, 2013 11:25 amSo, one of the panels I attended at WisCon was on the subject of Tumblr. One of the topics that came up... well, I don't recall the context, but broadly, it was the idea of using Tumblr for research or writing a paper on Tumblr, and the point was made by some of the panelists to make sure one credits their sources and asks for permission before doing so.
I was in the audience so I didn't want to take up too much time, but I felt the need to add the comment that the culture of blogging and the culture of academia are not the same thing, and that academics should never assume that merely citing a blog is going far enough. I kind of wish that my thoughts had been better composed, because I'm afraid what comes across when we talk about these things is the idea that bloggers (at least those who aren't also academics) Just Don't Understand How These Things Work and therefore need to be coddled until they can get with the program, rather than the idea that academics (at least those who aren't also personal bloggers) aren't understanding something about how personal blogging works.
I think the general assumption among academics is that blogging need not be treated as anything new and different, because it simply amounts to publication, and we all know how to handle publications. Publications are public... it says so, right there in the first two syllables. A new publication format requires no soul-searching or careful handling, you just need to figure out how to cite it and you're good.
And a lot of people who aren't academics (or at least not good ones) have glommed onto this thinking: "your blog is public, therefore I can do what I want with/to it" has become an all-purpose retort to people who refer to their blogs as a personal space.
I've grappled with this notion before... the idea that there are degrees of publicness, that a conversation had on a street corner is not the same as a sermon delivered by a street corner preacher. But it was at this Tumblr panel where I was struggling to impress on people the notion that people's blogs are personal spaces and that this should be respected that I realized there's a false dichotomy here.
The thing I've been missing is that "personal" and "public" aren't even opposites.
"Private" and "public" are.
Even when we go out in public places, we retain our personal space. Personal conversations and personal moments may occur while in public. There is no contradiction or oxymoron inherent in these ideas because "personal" and "public" aren't opposing concepts.
The internet has made it possible for the personal to be published on a wider scale than ever before, but that doesn't mean that it ceases to be personal.
I was in the audience so I didn't want to take up too much time, but I felt the need to add the comment that the culture of blogging and the culture of academia are not the same thing, and that academics should never assume that merely citing a blog is going far enough. I kind of wish that my thoughts had been better composed, because I'm afraid what comes across when we talk about these things is the idea that bloggers (at least those who aren't also academics) Just Don't Understand How These Things Work and therefore need to be coddled until they can get with the program, rather than the idea that academics (at least those who aren't also personal bloggers) aren't understanding something about how personal blogging works.
I think the general assumption among academics is that blogging need not be treated as anything new and different, because it simply amounts to publication, and we all know how to handle publications. Publications are public... it says so, right there in the first two syllables. A new publication format requires no soul-searching or careful handling, you just need to figure out how to cite it and you're good.
And a lot of people who aren't academics (or at least not good ones) have glommed onto this thinking: "your blog is public, therefore I can do what I want with/to it" has become an all-purpose retort to people who refer to their blogs as a personal space.
I've grappled with this notion before... the idea that there are degrees of publicness, that a conversation had on a street corner is not the same as a sermon delivered by a street corner preacher. But it was at this Tumblr panel where I was struggling to impress on people the notion that people's blogs are personal spaces and that this should be respected that I realized there's a false dichotomy here.
The thing I've been missing is that "personal" and "public" aren't even opposites.
"Private" and "public" are.
Even when we go out in public places, we retain our personal space. Personal conversations and personal moments may occur while in public. There is no contradiction or oxymoron inherent in these ideas because "personal" and "public" aren't opposing concepts.
The internet has made it possible for the personal to be published on a wider scale than ever before, but that doesn't mean that it ceases to be personal.