Blogging as a platform for developing identities

Blogs (as detailed later in Section 3.6.2), from the words ‘web log’, are publishing platforms on the Internet that continue to grow in popularity (Lee and Gretzel, 2014). Blogs essentially allow users: “…regular and frequent updating, whether writing, photos or other content; the

expectation of linking to other bloggers and online sources; a month-by-month archive; the capacity of feedback through comments to the blog; a particular style of writing which is often characterised as spontaneous and revelatory” (Wakeford and Cohen 2008: 308).

57 Regardless of usage, there has been an explosive growth of blog use in this decade,

forming connections with several different audiences. However, little research has explored the forces that motivate users to engage in blog activities (Liao et al., 2013).

From my professional role as a primary school teacher (detailed in Section 1.2), I saw that the pupils I taught were keen to be part of clubs, societies at lunchtimes, and social groups out in the playground. I saw how pupils relished the chance to take control over projects or activities, such as designing their puppets or packaging and being granted autonomy. Despite there being a lack of research evidence, my perspective, therefore, was that motivations between online interactions might be a parallel for those in the primary school spaces; pupils wanted to connect with others, to share information, and to learn and help others learn.

Looking at professional identities in a blogging space, or ‘blogosphere', Luehmann (2008) found that blogs can facilitate the ‘trying on' and development of a variety of ‘interrelated professional sub-identities' (Luehmann, 2008: 175). Research into blog participation with adults found that there were several motivations, not only utilitarian motivation (i.e. perceived usefulness) and hedonic motivation (i.e. perceived playfulness) but also habitual behaviour and social identity (blog identification) (Liao et al., 2013). Research into children's

motivations for blog use is relatively unexplored, and purpose and motivation will thus be an important feature for analysis in the next chapter,

Gong (2010) conducted a cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparison between American bloggers and Chinese bloggers, and found that the bloggers’ linguistic practice is closely related to their developmental stage of life, their gender, and the cultural environment they are immersed in. Bloggers’ linguistic practice is also constrained by the internal system of the language they use for blogging. Language is, therefore, another critical feature to analyse in the blog posts and interactions. It will be essential to observe the way that language is used to communicate between and to each other.

It merits here clarification over the role of discourse and dialogue, and their definitions. Dialogue is deemed the nature of verbal exchanges. Discourse is the general trend or focus of a series of written, verbal or even actional exchanges over time, thus likely deemed related to exchanges over a longer period of time. Discourse is ‘institutionally defined

socially acceptable ways of thinking, doing or saying’ (Bartlett and Holland, 2013: 117). Both discourse and dialogue can be studied through Holland’s projected theory of ‘figured worlds’, artefacts, and identities in practice. ‘Discourse analysis' is a commonly used tool for

58 analysing blogs (Simpson, 2013; MacKay and Dallaire, 2014). Discourse analysis examines how language ‘produces and moderates social and psychological phenomena' (Mullet, 2018: 116).

Linking back to Urrieta’s concept of identity as relational (2007), a recent study by MacKay and Dallaire (2014) reconsidered the ‘Skirtboarders' blog', produced by a crew of female skateboarders, as a space where crew members attempt to reflexively start a movement and, in doing so, construct and circulate a wider collective identity (Taylor and Whittier, 1992). Through a discourse analysis of the blog comments and interviews with blog users, MacKay and Dallaire attempted to understand how young women who visit the blog either adopt or reject this collective identity, namely the ‘Skirtboarder’ identity (MacKay and Dallaire, 2014). This study highlighted the applicability of discourse analysis as a tool for analysing the blog posts in my project. To be sure, I explored further studies using this approach.

A blogging study which involved discourse analysis was that carried out by Simpson (2013), into the role of a class blog, and the ‘figured world' (Holland et al., 1998) is presented for a multilingual adult learner of English, ‘Shahedah', and her peers. Although with a different sample to this study, parallels can be considered here between the primary school children participating in this project, and the adult learners in Simpson’s study. The figured world itself offers a similar environment of learners, with a shared educational commonality, but it must be highlighted that each figured world is, in itself, a unique community and an unmatchable microcosm of behaviours, composed of the unique individuals who hold membership for that world.

Simpson (2013) found that the pedagogic use of the blog did not enable the development of new learner identity positions for students in Shahedah's class, often cited as an affordance of electronic media in language learning contexts (Simpson, 2013). On the blog, regarding expectations of linguistic behaviour and established power relations between students and their teacher, Shahedah's experiences of teacher-learner relations aligned with the

relationship between teacher and learner online.

Simpson's analysis, composed of discourse analysis and triangulated with interview data that was gathered from the same participants, examined how blog interaction displays identity alignment. Simpson's study supports the claim of the following chapter (Chapter 3, Methodology) that triangulation can enhance the findings of this study.

59 practice (CoP), Simpson explored the role of hierarchies within blogs, and how there may be a power dynamic between different members. In their work on ‘Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive, and Computational Perspectives’ (1991), Lave and Wenger place emphasis on the individual in playing their role as a learner when learning can be viewed as a ‘feature of membership in a community of practice' (Matusov et al., 2013: 918). Lave and Wenger (1991) discuss the progression from a legitimate peripheral participant to one who becomes more ‘expert' or experienced', who is then able to negotiate and navigate the unwritten membership rules within successfully- in this case- the online blogging community. The interesting role of a ‘novice’ in a new community presents, is, to the established ‘old-timers’, a ‘newcomer’ who must enter a cycle of negotiation within the community of practice. Learning processes, therefore, involve a parallel advancement of both the learner’s membership in the community through the social interactions that take place, and the shaping of identity as a result of these interactions (Lave and Wenger, 1991).

This study suggests that entering an online space, such as a blogging platform, can offer this same developmental opportunity of negotiation and renegotiation between newcomers and old-timers as users seek to establish an online presence, and thus their membership of the blog, and their identity, develops through this process. It is of importance to observe the interactional discussion that is reified by the blog comments; it is here that the girls’

conscious thinking is made explicit through their dialogic utterances. These utterances, and the nature and pattern of these utterances, can be interpreted and inferred from to inform emerging aspects of their identity. The blog posts analysed in this study (Chapter 6) also allow for exploration of Lave and Wenger's suggestion of sociocultural activity as a process for social and personal transformation, and for insights into the interactional processes, underpinning learning and identity development opportunities that membership in a blog may facilitate.