November 12 Reaction

For my Com 430z class we were assigned to do a reading by Lori Kendall called "Shout into the wind, and it shouts back". This article focus’s on a Web 2.0 technology that I have not talked about yet called LiveJournal.

The article was written based on research that the author had conducted. Kendall (2007) researched specific strategies that people of the LiveJournal use including identity methods and even information management techniques. Kendall starts out this article by telling us the "Methodology" used while conducting the research on LiveJournal. Two years of observations were made. Observations such as viewing samples of journals, conducting interviews, and even had a journal of her own. She goes in the article to talk about what she calls "Private journal vs. public performance"(p. 2). In this section she talks about things such as the blog as a diary and privacy concerns. She also talks about the nature of the blogs. By nature of the blogs I mean whether or not it is public or private.

She continues on into the article talking about "Efficiency vs. Audience Management" and "Control vs. Connection" (p.5, 9). "Autonomy vs. the Desire for Comments" is the last subject she talks about in her article (p.11). In the section she talks about how the users see their comments as an uncontrollable performance. A user’s comment can be deleted at anytime if the author of the blog does not like it. She also talks about how her participants have deleted comments because it may have been too personal for anyone other then them and the author. Kendall slightly touches on the waste of space or waste of a post. For example when someone just simply agrees it is a waste of space because it holds little information.

I think that this article is interesting in how the author considers different levels of interactions of the blogs a performance. It seems to me that Kendall is trying to show that people that use this site want to have a connection or bond with others and LiveJournal gives them the chance to do so. People like to hear feedback on what they say and want to hear opinions or what they write. If they did not, they would not be on the site.

Kendall, Lori. (2007). "Shout into the wind, and it shouts back." Identity and interactional tensions on LiveJournal. First Monday, 12. Retrieved on August 21, 2008 from http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_9/kenda11/index.html