Victorian Liberals in dissaray over contents of blog

A story on The Australian reports on the problems caused by a blog (hewhostandsfornothing) that saw two Victorian Liberal party staff members sacked for maintaining the blog. Allegedly the blog, now offline, was critical of party policy and direction. What distinguishes this blog from those that are the focus of my thesis is the manner in which they were maintained: hewhostandsfornothing was updated on computers located at Liberal Party HQ in Melbourne.

Whilst there are ample elements within this case that indicate struggles associated with the presence of power relationships, the fact that the blog was maintained on a work computer and was specifically aimed at the author's work, rather than their personal life, places the blog just outside of the field of my inquiry.

Related articles:

Blog betrayal: Libs sack rats: The Age

An archive of one of the blog posts, openly critical of the party leader, can be found here.

As a footnote to this article it's worth noting the permanency of blog posts. Despite attempts made to take the blog offline archives of the blog are still available as the above line shows.

Blogs in academia | Mortensen and Walker

Whilst I agree that most people think that what is written on the Internet lacks credibility, it is not a view shared by a growing number of academics. Rather they see a substantial and growing body of work that is highly credible, highly reliable, and a valuable

contribution to knowledge.

Mortensen, T. and J. Walker. (2004). "Blogging thoughts: personal
publication as an online research tool."   Retrieved April 4, 2008, from
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&cluster=1764821237272525813.

See also

Mortensen, T. E. (2004). "Weblogs and the Dilemma of Academia."
Retrieved October 6, 2007, from
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/personal_publication.html.

Weblogs and the dilemna of academia | Mortenson

I may have posted this link before but this scholarly review of blogs, quoting Habermas and Bourdeiu is excellent reading and relates directly to my research. In fact I might do a review of it at some point soon

How business use blogs to create fear

There are many reported instances of employees being fired for blogging. All too often these cases become very public. Partly as a result of the public nature of a private blog, and partly as a result of the surveillance methods used by corporations, employees are understandably fearful of being too public about their discussions about there work.

However, according to Bruce Barry in an interview on Business Week, such a situation is unhealthy for society. Whilst he agrees that it's quite within the legal rights of an employer to keep a watch on what is said about their company through a variety of surveillance methods, he questions whether this is wise business practice. He points out that employees have been gathering around water coolers and in other private public places discussing their work for decades. He argues that blogs are simply a new form of water cooler (my term not his) and as such bosses should be a little more circumspect when responding to blog posts. After all, he believes, blogs are simply old speech in a new setting.

Barry's views very much accord with my own view of blogging. Whilst my hypothesis is that blogs are conducted as a means to personal emancipation, the act of recognising the message beyond the words of a blog post is a skill that upcoming managers do well to develop. By reducing or eliminating fear in the workplace managers and leaders improve the relationships they have with their employees and thus improve the conditions for productivity and team cohesion.

The end of the pubic space on the internet?

The point is made that the initial hopes for the Internet was that it would become a "grand "public forum"" in which free speech, at least in the US, would be given the very highest protection; however during the development of the Internet, the US government was influenced to hand over the regulation of the Internet to private organisations. Effectively these grand public spaces have become owned commercial spaces under the control of their various owners. As a result, the government is no longer able to protect the rights of free speech in these privately owned commercial spaces. The promise of the Internet, that it would become a grand publci space has all but been lost. At least in real space we have the opportunity of both private and public speech, but in a commercially owned space, much of this balance is lost.

The authors claim that "[o]n the Intemet, however, essentially no places exist to serve as "pub-
lic forums" because the places within which expression occurs are over-whelmingly privately owned." However they appear to ignore, or make light of, the existence of private blogs, particularly those using freely available, publicly developed software such as WordPress. Whilst there argument may be that the files making up the blog are hosted by a privately owned ISP, and therefore subject to the private censorship of the ISP, the experience of the private blogger is that, utilising such software, they are quite free to say whatever they chose.

If their argument is that there are essentially no public spaces on the Internet in or on which individuals can avail themselves of the opportunity for uncensored free speech, then the nature of private blogs must be questioned. If they are not public spaces, then at what point do they become commercially owned spaces. It is understandable to say that private blogs on MySpace or Blogger - controlled and censored as they are by their corporate owners - are the subject of corporate censorship of free speech. Just how a private blog, hosted on an individual's own domain, and regulated only very minimally by the regulations of the ISP - which could be a very liberal overseas ISP - is regulated by commercial interests is not made clear.

It is this unusual nature of a private blog, one of the few remaining platforms for free speech, that is so interesting for this research. If employees attempt to use a corporate blog to create organisational change they must inevitably come up against the power of the corporate censors. On a private blog, they are free to say whatever they chose. Inevitably corporations will attempt to broaden their domain and sphere of influence into the world of the private blog if it is thought that their interests are not being served by the employee. Their attempts to do so will be by way of employment contracts that consider a variety of censorship options aimed at the regulation of the otherwise free speech of employees, including that of private blogging, and employees will continue to test these censorship limits.

As a footnote to this short review, it is worth noting that the article is very US focussed with a very detailed legal examination of the First Amendment rights of free speech in the United States. There are many countries in which no such amendment exists (Australia is one such example); and it is worthwhile examining the nature of private blogs and the use to which they are put by employees.

THE DEATH OF THE PUBLIC FORUM IN
CYBERSPACE
By Dawn C. Nunziato
downloaded from http://web.ebscohost.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/ehost/pdf?vid=27&hid=8&sid=0a5b81f3-76eb-4ab1-95b8-57abec0b1014%40sessionmgr2
on 4th March 2008

Students get the sack for blogging

It isn't just workers who get fired for blog posts. Students are also coming under fire for their contributions to MySpace reports Associated Press. The battle for control over blogs as public spaces is not simply limited to arrangements that have a commercial nature. The article suggests that schools are seeking the power to control students' activities to ensure continued control over the school environment.

Such extensions of control will be useful to examine in the context of my research thesis. Beyond school yards government instrumentalities may want control over what people have to say in order to reduce the spread of terrorism. Whilst these may be interesting extensions to the central point of my thesis I think I'll probably leave them out in the interests of clarity and available space.

Free speech on a blog not a First Amendment issue

In this article readers are advised that the First Amendment of the US doesn't protect the free speech of bloggers.

Columbine shooters and teacher in trouble

FREE SPEECH AT CORE OF TEACHER'S ARREST ; HIS ONLINE BLOG COMMENT RILES SOME READERS, BUT HIS RIGHT TO EXPRESS IT IS DEFENDED BY OTHERS.

Case of a school teacher who caused a few problems for himself praising the Columbine shooters.

Why blogging is different to print publication

Much of the tension created between employers and private bloggers stems from what is said about the company on the blog. This tension is not new though. People could, and still do, publish their thoughts about their employer and their work mates via a letter to the editor or an interview on the radio or television. There is, however, a big difference between a blog and traditional broadcast media.

Broadcast media are expensive to set up and operate and operate in a zero sum game. If a story runs, it does so at the expense of another story. The result is only those stories that are likely to capture and maintain the attention of a mass audience are likely to receive air play or go to print. For mass media operators, big audiences mean big advertising revenues and big profits. It's a simple matter of creating the highest likelihood of making a profit.

Media metrics, such as these, have, in many ways shielded companies from negative publicity. Unless a story about a company is outrageously compelling it is unlikely to make even the early, early morning edition of the news. Blogs are not subject to the same economic model.

As Clay Shirky attests, blogs have very low barriers to entry (this one, aside from my time, is completely free), have no economies of scale (it's just as cheap to publish to an audience of 1 as to 1 000 001), and there is a limitless supply (the creation of this blog doesn't mean that another blog can't be made). In effect, blogs change completely the economics of publication and therefore provide the perfect environment for the rise of what Shirky calls "mass amateurization". In other words, anyone with access to the Internet can now be a blogger; and publish their thoughts about their boss, their company, their colleagues.

Never before have businesses faced such an immense risk, and never before have employees had so much publishing power - not to mention a potential worldwide audience - at their disposal. It is small wonder that businesses are becoming so concerned about the power of the blogger. One wonders how long it will take for unions to join in the battle on behalf of their constituents.

Bloggers' Expectations of Privacy and Accountability: An Initial Survey

Here's a few notes on an article relating to privacy concerns and practices in blogging, with references at the bottom of the post.

Ongoing authorship. People look for and expect a consistent author and voice of a blog.

Archival/permanent nature of posts are exaggerated by RSS feeds which create broadcast copies of blog posts which cannot be later deleted. Most bloggers edit past posts to some degree or another, but are also aware of the difficulty in erasing a blog post completely. This appears to be contradictory behaviour in that once a blog post is out there, it's out there. Editing is not much use. Most bloggers are unconcerned that their blog posts are permanently archived, and show signs of being ambivalent about privacy, until such time as they have an unpleasant experience.

Frequency and brevity of blogging with corresponding reduction in quality. Often people post to blogs things which haven't been thought through and this can be dangerous.

Most blogs are of the personal journal type. Only 3% are knowledge blogs. Existence of an audience important in helping people 'think' on a blog.This is a knowledge blog.

Women and teenagers account for over half the blogs and these were generally personal journals. Many blogs contain accurate personal information.

People who blog about their employers tend to anonymise their company out of fear of repercussions including the loss of jobs and other negative consequences. It is still unclear both ethically or legally where privacy boundaries sit in relation to the blogging activities of employees and this may be a useful avenue for future research. Companies are urged to have detailed and specific blogging policies in relation to what they see as being acceptable free speech and what is considered to be off-limits. Many companies are yet to fully articulate a blogging policy; despite having company blogs that are updated by employees (Microsoft). Groove Networks and Sun Microsystems are two companies with clearly defined blog policies.

People tend to construct their own policy on identification of themselves, their employer, other individuals, and other companies and products based on a variety of personal values.

"Authors in this study were willing to publish the names of friends and companies/products when they deemed the contents of an entry to be either positive or innocuous. This tendency mirrors results from a previous study showing that people are inclined to value privacy less the more socially desirable a piece of information is (Huberman, Adar, & Fine, 2004)."

Some bloggers perceive they 'know' their audience from reading track-backs and comments, however this only represents the 'core' audience of readers and not the wider audience. This lack of broader perception can lead to bloggers posting comments that their core audience want to read about; and this can lead to posts that reveal personal information that is not suited to the public arena of a blog.

Viegas, F. B. (2005). Bloggers' expectations of privacy and accountability: An initial survey. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(3), article 12. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue3/viegas.html

Rebecca Blood :: Weblogs: A History And Perspective

Rebecca Blood :: Weblogs: A History And Perspective: "Blogger, Pitas, and all the rest have given people with little or no knowledge of HTML the ability to publish on the web: to pontificate, remember, dream, and argue in public, as easily as they send an instant message."

More on blogging

A link in the curriculum in webct is to Blogging thoughts:
personal publication as
an online research tool. It's a useful and interesting read about where how blogging developed and how it's being used. Of particular interest is the way that it's being used by researchers as a research journal and a storage space for links. For this purpose I find blogging very useful, blogging anything I find online so that it can be found later.

What's also interesting in this reading is the quote from one of the founders of blogger, Evan Williams, who suggests that blogging is all about frequency, brevity and peronality.

To me, the blog concept is about three things: Frequency, Brevity, and Personality.
(..) This clarification has evolved over time, but I realised early on
that what was significant about blogs was the format — not the content.1 - Evan Williams

The encouragement here is not to attempt to get blogging right but rather make a start and massage things into shape as you go.

10 Steps to Success on the 'Net Without SEO

There's no need to piss everyone off by being fancy with your SEO efforts. Here's some practical steps to take to improve your website, and your net success without resorting to black hat SEO tactics.

Eenjoy

10 Steps to Success on the 'Net Without SEO

The corporate blog manifesto

If you're wondering what factors to consider before starting a corporate blog, here's your starting point. Robert Scoble, blogging guru from Microsoft, sets out some of the key points to consider before you go public with your thoughts.

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger

I'm a skeptic

I've read, heard, and seen lots about the power of blogs. They provide us with the tools to be an author, critic, and publisher - you name it, it can be done with a blog. Sure, I buy into that part of the story. If it makes someone feel better to tap away at a keyboard late at night, writing about something of little or no interest to anyone else in the world, then I say go for it. After all, that's exactly what I'm doing right now. But I for one have a question to ask before swallowing the bait, hook, line and sinker. How can a blog benefit a small retail business?

My wife owns an interest in four new age giftware stores. They're charming and well thought out, with a slick, yet peaceful feel about them - and they're doing just fine as far as businesses go. The next step is to take them online and that's where my inquiry begins. You see, I could easily (and cheaply) set them up with a plain vanilla website; the type with Home | Our Products | About Us | Contact and a home page featuring a middle age couple running through the surf and some sparkling pictures of crystals and jewelery laid out invitingly on a piece of velvet. It would do the job, but would the business be missing out on all of the much-talked-about benefits of web 2.0? Would it simply walk past the holy grail of customer-generated content, the market as a conversation, social networking - the list goes on? And if these are important strategies for a business then how can a small new giftware store adopt them without going broke trying? In other words, what's the best bang for the buck?

So if you, like me, have an interest in this rather dull and dry subject, then add a comment or two. Share your thoughts, as I share mine. Who knows, we might find out something new.