Performing the Blogging Self: Comparative Analysis

During the analysis, I used the constant comparison method (Silverman, 2006), mo- ving between different participants in order to check if the hypotheses emerging for one participant yielded for others. When I was analyzing the participant summaries comparatively, I identified an important pattern in that the participants’ performances of blogging selves tended to change over time. While these changes varied in degree and scope across the sample, the changeability was always there, whether in terms of changes in the topical content, the visual self-presentation, the blog design, or the fre- quency of updates. When I was reviewing the interview data, I was looking for how the participants were describing and positioning their own performances of blogging selves and how this changed over time. As a result, I identified that the different ways of per- forming the blogging self were actually manifestations of the different responses to the norms and rules of the mainstream blogging community expressed by the participants during the interviews. In other words, the attitude towards the norms of the mainstream community came across as a crucial dimension in developing a typology of performan- ces of blogging selves. Establishing the other dimensions of the typology was a complex process involving testing the fit of different dimensions across the sample. In my using as the point of departure the participants’ views and perspectives captured in their stories of participation over time, I found that they identified with their blogging selves over time to varying degrees. I detected an association between the degree to which the par- ticipants adjusted to the norms of the mainstream blogging community and the degree to which they identified with the performances of their blogging selves. Hence, I esta- blished the degree of identification with the blogging self as the second dimension of the typology. The process led to establishing three strategies of performing the blogging self, which were different responses to the norms and values of the mainstream blogging community: the adjustment strategy, where the performances of the blogging self were adjusted to these norms; the fit-in-and-be-myself strategy where they partly complied with these norms but also diverged from them in some ways; and the contestation stra- tegy, where these norms were contested.

In turn, these different responses to the norms of the mainstream blogging community resulted in different performances in the blogs, which could be placed on a continuum of performing the self according to the femininity norms of the community, or against these norms. Such classification reflected the analyzed data well but also avoided the ca- tegorization of the participants as different kinds of bloggers which would have resulted in labeling the girls in particular ways. Instead, the typology documented that the parti-

cipants were subjects who pick up various strategies of performing the blogging self over time, while also acknowledging the wider cultural contexts and gendered discourses that influenced these performances. The three strategies can be placed on a continuum with respect to 1) the degree to which the participants’ performances of selves fitted in with the mainstream blog community, and 2) the degree of identification with the blogging self. The higher the degree of fitting in with the mainstream blog community, the lower the identification with the blogging self. The table below presents the use of strategies over time for all the participants.

Pseudonym Use of strategies over time

Sara Adjustment, changed blogging platform, quit blogging

Nora Adjustment, quit blogging

Ella Adjustment, took a break off school to blog full time

Sofie Fit-in-and-be-myself, adjustment, changed blogging platform, quit blogging Lisa Fit-in-and-be-myself, took a break from blogging

Deena Fit-in-and-be-myself, took a break from blogging Pia Fit-in-and-be-myself, quit blogging

Emma Fit-in-and-be-myself, adjustment, continued blogging Karoline Fit-in-and-be- myself, adjustment, continued blogging

Maria Fit-in-and-be-myself, started new blog, contestation, continued blogging Nadira Contestation, fit-in-and-be-myself, took a break from blogging Janne Contestation, quit blogging

Table 3: Use of strategies of performing the blogging self over time

The strategies are refined, analytical products that I derived from the empirical mate- rial. Rather than relating the stories of participation of all participants, Paper 2 presents the typology of the strategies with their essential characteristics and illustrative examples from the data. Importantly, the article also presents the dynamics of performing the blogging self across time and contexts focusing on several participants. While this redu- ces the thickness of the presented description, this way of presenting data corresponds to the goal of the investigation. Still, as summarized in sections above, the presented findings are formulated on the basis of multi-step analyzes that resulted from in-depth, detailed investigation of extensive raw data. Rather than providing evidence for repre- sentational generalization, Paper 2 contributes to the theorization of performing iden- tity as self in online-based settings and to the provision of some insights on the experi- ences of, and processes involved in, participating in mainstream blogging as part of the contemporary girl’s digital media culture in Norway.