Thesis question revisted - again

My previous post outlined a new provisional thesis question.

A friend suggested a variation with the aim of being more "...explicit about which Foucauldian theories/modes of analysis you will be using."

Here's the suggestion (with thanks to S.):

"What do the application of Foucault's Panopticist theory reveal about the employment tensions found in and around dooce and QueenofSky?"

I'll be covering some of Foucault's other theories so here's my edit:

What do Foucault's theories on power and subjectivity reveal about the employment tensions found in and around dooce and QueenofSky?

I think I'm onto something.

Again, thanks S.

Thesis question revisted

Will I ever tire of re-working my thesis statement? I already am, but I'm going to continue.

This is what I outlined in my honours presentation:

• Examine the tensions arising from the publication of personal blogs by employees
• Employing a Foucauldian analysis
• Of contestation located around two prominent personal bloggers

I want to work it into a more concise question.

What would a Foucauldian analysis of the contestation found on and around dooce and QueenofSky reveal about the tensions arising from the publication of personal blogs by employees?

It seems clunky. How about:

What do Foucault's theories say about the contestation found on and around dooce and QueenofSky?

I dropped the last part because that's really something that may come out of the analysis rather than what I'm doing.

And then:

What do Michel Foucault's theories indicate about the employment tensions found on and around dooce and QueenofSky?

This last one is more concise. I like.

Best I run off and get some feedback from super coach M.

Thesis statement

Here's thesis statement v2.01.

Analyse the potential effects on the subjectivity of employees in an employment relationship arising from their publishing of work-related personal blogs?

Is it focussed enough? Does it make sense?

Refining my thesis statement

Re-focus the analysis of personal blogs away from legal debates about human rights and employment law to an investigation of the processes through which work related posts found on personal blogs become a cause for conflict and contestation between employers and employees.

Thesis statement and outline

I've just met with my supervisor and what came out of that meeting was a few ideas - lots in fact- of the direction my thesis could go. So here are my thoughts in very raw form and quite unedited.

We started out with what I meant be emancipation and my answer was that I really didn't have an answer that was theoretically sound. What I intended from the use of that word was to highlight the struggle with employers through which personal bloggers often proceed. To my way of thinking these struggles reminded me of some form of Judeo/Christian struggle to achieve enlightenment. Through a struggle comes a realization of ones self and an understanding of our limits and abilities. There's something mythically compelling about David and Goliath stories where the small and disadvantaged has taken on the behemoth and won. That's the notion I was attempting to convey; but I understand that there are significant theoretical difficulties.

I've been reading a lot in and around Foucault's theories of power/knowledge, and I believe this may be fruitful ground. Much can be said about the way in which personal blogs that mention or relate to an employees work are creating a new domain for the contestation of power. They provide a new means to articulate a new form of power relationship between employer and employee.

The nature of a personal blog is a many faceted artifact. Is it a public or private space (a blog about work can be password protected and available to only family and close friends or it can be available to anyone with an Internet connection), how does technology (RSS feeds, blog aggregation sites) change the nature of the blog, what effects are created by the use of pseudonyms, and what can be said about fictionalised accounts of a person's working life?

Then there are the numerous examples of bloggers getting dooced (fired for the content of their blogs) and what these examples tell us about the perceived nature of the power relationship between employer and employee. We've tentatively agreed to focus on just one example, that of Heather B. Armstrong. Armstrong, on her blog dooce, made a number of remarks (using various methods to obfuscate the real life identities of the characters in the narrative) about her work and this led to her being fired. Much of the literature I've reviewed to this point treats Armstrong's (and other employee bloggers) from the perspective of established power structures; the rights to free speech emanating from the US First Amendment and 'at will' US employment contracts whilst only a small body of literature has focussed on the underlying negotiation and renegotiation of existing power structures as a result of Armstrong's blog. The nature of the blog and Armstrong's case could form a second chapter.

I believe there is enough published about Armstrong's blog and her sacking from which I could build an extensive Foucauldian analysis about the agonism of the power relationship between employer and employee. I have not read sufficiently to describe two further chapters here but certainly I would want to address issues of surveillance and the hierarchical gaaze (Panopticism complimented by Deleuze's Postscript on Societies of Control) that lead to her blog being found, the examination of her blog (the obectification of Armstrong-as-blogger who then becomes a subject in the realm of power that has now extended to the Internet), and normalising judgement wherein the employer refers back to notions of normality as defined by management, (possibly) corporate lawyers, and popular business practice surrounding the censorship of employees. I could also discuss the matter of the power relationship existing between her and her employer and the ways that is agonised and the ways by which the intransigence of Armstrong's free will became evident. There is much more that can be found in Foucault's Power and the Subject that could provide fascinating analysis of the scenario. Finally I could turn to the matter of how Armstrong's actions have changed the balance and nature of the power relationship by turning the gaze back to the company (hmmm, Armstrong didn't name the firm she worked for but this would work with the QueenofSky example) where the company's work practices became the object of observation after the fact of the termination (I think I could build something here, but it's early days in my thinking).

Might it be possible to uncover new perspectives and understandings about the power relationship between Armstrong and her employer by utilising a Foucauldian analysis of the various texts that serve to define the events related to the termination of her employment?

I'm pressing the publish button without proof-reading so don't be to upset if you find a typo or three.

Proposed thesis/chapter outline

My supervisor has asked me to start thinking about my chapter layouts and I can say, at this early stage I'm struggling with how this might look.

The part I'm struggling with is the "emancipation" part of my research question. The more I read the further I seem to be straying from any concept of emancipation. There are three major concepts that are jumping out about employees and private blogs and they are power/knowledge, surveillance (feeds back into power/knowledge), and free speech. I'll attempt to explain here how they might fit into my thesis, but whether they can be worked up into a chapter in their own right is another question, although I believe they probably can.

I'm reading and writing about Foucault's concept of power/knowledge, particularly his article The Subject and Power. I think I could build up an argument about the manner in which companies employ a constant gaze through technologies of surveillance (RSS, Bots, web crawlers, Technorati alerts) that objectify individual employees and submit their blogs and themselves to examination. There are a number of notions here about the importance to power of the pre-existence of the essential freedom of the individual to create a relation of power, and this could matter could be explored more fully. By this I mean that, in most advanced democracies free speech is considered to be a basic human right, and in many companies free speech receives numerous platitudes in company mission statements. The issue though is the manner in which companies respond to individuals who chose to avail themselves of this human right bringing. Here is where the strategies of power come into play through a series of steps used to limit a person's free expression.

The chapter might address some of these questions:

• How do companies use surveillance technologies as a means to increase the field of visibility and therefore expand their domain of power?
• In what ways to employees become subjects of power relations and how does the agonism of power relations show up?
• What broader categories of knowledge are at play in determining the "normal". Here I refer to those assumptions that are at play that are go unquestioned in an employment relationship (I pay you wages and therefore can tell you what you will and won't say about my company)

As I write this, a very rough and unedited stream of thought (TOL - thinking out loud) I'm thinking that what I may have just described is my whole thesis. My general theme would then be power relations between organisations and employees with private blogs. Maybe my chapters would be:

1. A detailed exploration of Foucault's concept of power/knowledge (possibly including Deleuze as his theories relate to surveillance).
2. The case for free speech - why it's important, what it means.
3. How employees with private blogs lose their free speech through the expansion of domains of power.

My thesis question/statement would read:

• Do employees risk losing their right to free speech by maintaining private blogs?

A response to the Jodi Dean post

A response to my post about Jodi Dean can be found here. A comment on that post raises issues about my use of the term emancipation and I will continue to discuss this matter with my supervisor. I have so much to read and learn about emancipation. I may just stick with a Foucauldian analysis of blogging by employees in relation to power/knowledge and Panopticism.

This journey is both exciting and frightening.

Personal emancipation

I'm having trouble with the term personal emancipation and the way it is so related to Kantian notions of emancipatory struggle. Perhaps something more along the lines of 'sites of resistance' which refers back to Foucault's Power and the Subject and possibly to some of Deleuze's work might work better. I want to demonstrate struggle, but more from the perspective of an essential human freedom.

Thesis question

I'm starting to think that I may need to lose the word "emancipation" from my thesis question. It tends to drag the research back to the Enlightenment and struggle. Since then much has been written about the creation of the self and subjectivity which has moved understandings beyond a static self and emancipatory struggle to much more complex and subtle notions of what it means to "be".

As I read more of Foucault, Giddens, Poster, and Derida I think I'll come up with a replacement word. Nonetheless the basic direction of the research remains unchanged.

Where do I stand?

In relation to my thesis question, where do I stand? A story or two here may help.

Firstly, when I was a councilor at REIWA I was censured by council for submitting a review of one of the acts to the Ministry of Fair Trading. My review differed in substance and conclusion from REIWA's views, and I went to some length to distance myself from REIWA and to show the work represented my opinion and not that of REIWA. I thought then, and still do, that REIWA had no jurisdiction to tell me what I could or couldn't say on matters of public interest. As a councilor I was happy to support the organisational line, as a private citizen I had the right to say my piece in a legitimate public environment. The fact that I was censured smacked of insecurity and fear on the part of the leadership group and failed to respect my rights as an individual.

The second comes from my experience growing up as a member of the Jehovah's Witness religion. At lay person level there exists no mechanism by which a person may question, especially publicly, dogma as handed down by church hierarchy. The use of thought and reason for the purpose of questioning such dogma was, and, as far as I'm aware still is actively discouraged, with the ultimate indignity to be disfellowshipped thus losing favour and contact with family and friends. I believe that such rules and regulations affect peoples lives in a very direct and negative manner and it is this form of abuse of power I believe everyone should be on guard.

For these reasons I position myself as holding that the greatest organisational good is achieved through creating an environment that respects the fundamental rights of a person to seek their own enlightenment through self-expression seen in the broadest possible terms. At times these expressions of the self may appear on face value to be opposed or to actively question authority within the organisation, however, allowing such expression, and the resultant debate provides for a far healthier, more nurturing, and prosperous working environment.

Is this the final draft of my thesis statement?

How do employees use private blogs for personal emancipation?

This sentence is the next draft of my thesis statement, and hopefully my last (although once I speak with my supervisor I'm sure this wish will prove to be in vane).

Here's my thoughts on the question. Firstly, it's tightly focussed on employees and their use of private blogs. By that definition I exclude social networking sites and other self-publication platforms. Why? These platforms are owned by corporations which have their own level of censorship. After all, even on this blog, which is operated on a Blogger platform owned by Google, someone who takes offense at my posts can report the blog to Google and, if the company thinks fit, the blog can be taken off line. Much more then is this the case on the likes of MySpace and Facebook. There are other reasons for focusing on private blogs. Unlike Facebook, which is known as a walled garden, tucked away from the prying eye of search engine indexing, private blogs are generally search engine friendly. In other words, they are effectively designed to not only allow personal publication, but be efficiently located by a public interested in their subject matter.

Secondly, I focus here on the matter of personal emancipation. Personal emancipation suggests a struggle on the part of an individual for the improvement of the self through political and social equality. How does this struggle show up in real life on a private blog? Examples such as Dooce (Heather Armsotrong) and QueenofSky - prominent examples of employees who blogged privately and ended up getting fired as a result - demonstrated, subsequent to their dismissal, a very clear passion for their own development and a desire to not let their experiences be wasted in a struggle for fairness and equality. In fact, Armstrong presents an ongoing theme of struggle to escape the effects of growing up in a Mormon household, and in some parts of her blog the anger boils to the surface in a natural and vigorous manner.

The struggle for equality and recognition often appears in the relationship with other key life figures by which I refer to employers who may become substitute parents (this is an issue I wish to stay clear of in my thesis as I am far from qualified to comment on the matter) and who must deal with an employees personal struggles in the context of an employment relationship. As in both cases, and particularly that of Dooce, it could well be argued that, rather than the individuals in question being corporate rebels and misfits, they were simply seeking to find and refine their own boundaries through self-publication and engagement with authority figures.

Why is this at all important? What benefits could arise from such an exploration? For a start a more enlightened view of free speech in a corporate setting may go a long way to improving the relationships between employees and employers. Often the real message is lost in the translation and enlightened managers do well to look beyond what was said or done to the unspoken, unwritten code many layers below the surface. At a broader level I hope that the research might spark some debate about how relevant censorship is in an organisation and whether it's costs far outweigh it's effects in the long run. Perhaps surveillance and censorship may be the seeds of a far too fertile crop of distrust and resentment that yields an abundance of inefficiency and lost productivity.

I'm keen to hear or read your comments.

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.

Thesis statement

In working on being clear on what my thesis is going to be I recently posted an article about what was meant by social network sites. Much of this article was based on the work of dana boyd, and whilst useful, it really doesn't serve the purpose and the direction of my thesis. Let me explain.

My thesis is going to focus on the battle for sovereignty between individuals and employers as evidenced by the extent to which an employer can control what an employer says or does on a social networking site. To make the definition of social network/ing too narrow I will remove sites such as YouTube, flickr, RSVP, and Youporn, along with blogs and wikis. All these sites utilise collaborative, social software, and all provide the user with the ability to publish.

It is the act of publishing the self that is at the heart of the battle for sovereignty. If the issue were merely one of lost productivity my thesis would best be addressed through a legal framework - it is well tested that companies can direct what activities are conducted on their corporate networks. However, the waters become very much murkier when we start addressing how far an organisation can go in directing the private activities of an employee.

These activities are only ever problematic when they become public; and it is the public nature of social networking that makes these issues so interesting for businesses. Really, therefore, any media which an employee might utilise to publish becomes relevant in this regard (and I think that's a point that's worth making in the thesis) but it's the nature of self-publishing on the Internet - ubiquitous, public, permanent, replicable - that makes such technologies so fascinating for individuals and so concerning for employers.

Leading from this clarification I will say that it is "the-self publication" software that will be the focus of my thesis. That is to say, any software that allows an individual to publish any aspect of the self to an online audience. I'm confident this early definition is in some way problematic, but I think it's a useful start. It includes the sites and software genres mentioned above, but it excludes print media and public demonstrations (although I'm sure the same "battle for sovereignty" thesis could be proposed).