I’m part of Nuffnang community! (My personal viewpoint on the extract)

When I was reading the extract, I wasn’t really sure what the term ‘communal discourse’ meant by the authors. But after dissecting the extract by sentence, I tried to sit down and really think of what it means and I came out with this post regarding my understanding of the extract.

This makes me think of my days of being a blogger back in 2007. I actually wrote a bit of my history as a blogger here. Back then, I joined Nuffnang, currently Asia Pacific’s leading blog advertising community. The main purpose I joined Nuffnang was to generate some income for my blog through the advertisements but I realized that I was not earning as much as the other bloggers because my blog lack of readers or in the blogosphere it means blog traffic. The readers on my blog were mainly my friends and probably friends of friends so my network was very limited.

Then, I tried to expand my network by joining Nuffnang Innit which is a blog aggregator for all Nuffnang Glitterati members where the Nuffnang community share their blog entries to each other. So this sentence ‘this anchors blogs in the public arena, as part of a communal discourse’ (Mortensen & Walker 2002) relates to my experience and understanding of this part of the extract which is putting my blog out in the public, connecting with other bloggers and being part of an online community.

Nuffnang Innit is the ‘public arena’ where all the Nuffnangers (community) linking to each other thus creating an online community because in this ‘public arena’ we are sharing blog entries, leaving comments on the posts and even communicating with other bloggers using the chatbox.

Hence, after joining Nuffnang Innit and being ‘part of a communal discourse’, I saw a significant change in my blog traffic. Not only that, the topics that I wrote started to develop as I get ideas from other Nuffnanger’s post and my social network expanded from there. Overall, what I’m trying to explain from my experience here in relation to the extract is how the cross-linking between blogs in this online platform has created a community in the weblogs world.

Let me share with you how awesome Nuffnang community has been for me.

Yay! My Nuffnang profile.

Significant increase of readers on my blog after being part of Nuffnang community

Reference:

• Mortensen, T & Walker, J 2002, ‘Blogging Thoughts: Personal Publication as an Online Research Tool’ in Researching Ict’s in Context. Ed. Andrew Morrison. Oslo: University of Oslo, pp. 249-259.

Annotated Bibliography #7 – Communal discourse

‘This anchor blogs in the public arena, as part of a communal discourse’ (Mortensen & Walker 2002)

This sentence in the extract has been bothering me because I couldn’t fully understand what it means. So here is my attempt to analyse this sentence from the extract:

My first interpretation of this sentence is that while weblogs are all connected through links (as I previously explained in this post), the links connects us to an online platform or search engines which forms a community. Because no matter what hyperlink we click on, it will transport us to similar information and the linking which connects one weblog to another makes us part of a certain community; A community with similar or common topic of interest.

For example, if you Google the word ‘fashion’, the search engine would find websites that has tags linked to ‘fashion’. From the Google search results, you would find websites or blogs which are related to fashion. Google is the ‘public arena’ because it links to conversations of similar interest, making us part of the community interested in fashion.

Glance, NS, Hurst, M & Tomokiyo, T (2004) states that ‘the cross-linking that takes place between blogs, through blogrolls, explicit linking, trackbacks, and referrals has helped create a strong sense of community in the weblogging world’. Hence, it is the power of links in blogs which makes blogs part of a ‘communal discourse’ where links transport you from one blog to another making you part of a community with a discussion on similar interest.

Hence, in conclusion, everyone belongs to a certain community from the moment we are on the internet. The first tag we search on Google we are already putting ourselves into a certain community of interest, only looking for information of our own interest.

References:

• Glance, NS, Hurst, M & Tomokiyo, T 2004, ‘BlogPulse: Automated trend discovery for weblogs’, Intelliseek Applied Research Center, viewed 21 August 2011, <http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.118.2654&rep=rep1&type=pdf>.
• Mortensen, T & Walker, J 2002, ‘Blogging Thoughts: Personal Publication as an Online Research Tool’ in Researching Ict’s in Context. Ed. Andrew Morrison. Oslo: University of Oslo, pp. 249-259.

Annotated Bibliography #2 – Fields

It is difficult to define which field the text by Mortensen and Walker is situated within as there’s a combination of field that is interrelated. From the field of social science, it could branch out to fields such as internet, communication and media in regards to this extract.

Mortensen and Walker are early adopters of weblogs and they stated in the extract that weblogs are ‘part of a communal discourse’ (p. 259). The term ‘communal discourse’ here refers to a community that has something in common and also a community that communicates with each other. Well weblogs is a form of communication as conversations are form when bloggers link to each other, referring to them in blog posts and giving feedback on each other’s blog. Hence, the communication on weblogs forms a ‘communal discourse’, an online community where the field that is related to this text here is the sociology of internet as it involves the analysis of online communities especially through new media (social networks and blogs).

It is impossible not to see the relation of this field to media and communication as they are interrelated. Without media, there won’t be internet and without media, there won’t be communication as well. Therefore, the field of study is very broad and some fields tend to interrelate with one another that it is difficult to specify exactly which field this text is situated within. However, the extract is definitely within the field of internet-communication-media.

References:

• Mortensen, T & Walker, J 2002, ‘Blogging Thoughts: Personal Publication as an Online Research Tool’ in Researching Ict’s in Context. Ed. Andrew Morrison. Oslo: University of Oslo, pp. 249-259.