Weblogs weave social networks

For third-year biology student Tran To, law student Phillip
Carter and law Professor Eugene Volokh, blogging is an answer to
the question of how to get their voices heard, whether on a campus
of 40,000 or halfway across the world.

The three are a few of the growing number of people who record
their thoughts, opinions and daily activities in online journals
called weblogs ““ or blogs ““ that anyone with Internet
access can read.

Blogging appeals to college students because it solves the
problem of how to quickly form a social network, said communication
studies Assistant Professor Francis Steen.

Because knowing about someone’s past is often an integral
part of forming a friendship, blogs, which let readers surf through
past journal entries, are an ideal medium for adding substance to
new friendships, Steen said.

“You don’t have a history ““ how do you get to
know these people fast? … These weblogs have become a way for
people to deepen their relationships,” he said.

Having kept a blog since the beginning of her second year at
UCLA, To said she has met people through Xanga.com, a popular site
that hosts free blogging.

She said she has become connected to friends of friends through
reading their blogs on Xanga, which allows bloggers to post photos
and links to friends’ blogs in their journals.

To belongs to a Vietnamese Student Union blog ring, which links
the blogs of a circle of students involved in the group. At VSU
events, people recognize To because they’ve seen her
blog.

To said she used to post entries about her daily life, and that
she met and dated someone from another university who started
visiting her blog after surfing in through the ring.

Though people meet each other through Xanga and other blogs,
Steen says the image of a computer-ridden, social misfit that comes
to mind is inaccurate.

“It’s not the case at all. This is in fact something
that could enhance your social life … get you invited to
parties,” Steen said, adding that most bloggers who develop
deeper friendships with other bloggers probably see those friends
in person.

Communication studies Assistant Professor Tim Groeling said
blogging enhances the social life of people who might be
uncomfortable talking face-to-face with strangers. There’s a
bias toward viewing Internet communication as less socially pure
than face-to-face communication, but online communication is just
as valuable, he said.

Blogging can be a first step in getting to know someone, but To
said she hasn’t developed friendships solely through
blogging. The journals are public, so people don’t always
reveal much of themselves, To said.

“I find that I have become a little closer by reading
someone’s Xanga, but it doesn’t tell everything,”
she said.

When people do post detailed information, it’s still hard
to decipher their personalities because online communication
eliminates body language, tone of voice and other important cues,
she added.

Fifth-year history and communication studies student Lisa
Concoff, who has kept a blog for years and has a paid
LiveJournal.com account, said blogs are a fun way for students to
keep updated on each others’ lives while procrastinating on
school work. Concoff said she ““ like others ““ tends to
post longer and more frequent spiels during finals week.

Professor Volokh, who has kept a blog since spring 2002, said
his blog is a forum where he and co-bloggers can express ideas and
opinions without the long editorial process involved when
submitting opinion pieces or articles to publications.

“You’re not constrained by anything but your own
interests. You can dash something off without having an editor
agree to it … You could say, “˜this is (my) tentative view
““ I might be wrong,'” he said.

Volokh’s blog is titled The Volokh Conspiracy, a name he
says he chose because for its play on words. Unlike a real
conspiracy, thoughts posted on Volokh’s blog are for public
consumption, and unlike conspirators, the bloggers have no real
power over the events they rant about ““ they’re just
commentators, he said.

Though bloggers may feel they lack influence in issues they
write about, Professor Groeling said blogs are giving a voice to
millions whose ideas would otherwise go unpublished.

“I think they are increasingly important, not just from a
social standpoint. This is a tool where individuals are creating a
distributed mass media,” he said.

Volokh’s blog is linked to Carter’s blog, which is
appropriately called Intel Dump, a military term for a
comprehensive briefing on a situation. Carter posts excerpts from
news articles and provides his analysis of current events, often
the same day they happen.

By 9 a.m. Sunday, before most people on the West Coast had
cracked their morning papers, Carter had already posted a
1,200-word analysis on the resignation of Haiti’s president
and the events surrounding it that were detailed in that
day’s New York Times.

Carter’s site, which has been up since November 2002,
attracts about 1,500 visitors a day. Some of his posts have been
developed into opinion pieces in newspapers including the Chicago
Tribune.

Editors who read Carter’s blog may ask him to expand on an
entry to form an opinion piece, or he’ll pitch an idea to an
editor.

But in the end, Carter said he is faithful to his blog because
it lets him speak his mind without formal publication.

“It’s unfiltered and it’s broadcast. I like
the ability to reach a broad audience with thoughts that may not
survive an editor,” he said.

Blogging became popular after sites began hosting free and
easy-to-use journals in 1999, and since then, its following has
steadily risen.

Steen has taught the course “Social Communication and New
Technology” for the past three years, and each quarter,
students are asked to complete a project on a topic related to the
Internet. This is the first year his students have expressed
interest in researching blogs, Steen said.

One reason blogging has become so popular is because it’s
easy, Groeling said.

Bloggers need to know little about computers and nothing about
HTML because Web sites hosting blogs have formats into which
bloggers can type entries.

Groeling said many people are first-time bloggers keeping online
journals at the suggestions of friends, and that like any trend,
blogging may become less mainstream when some people trying it out
decide they don’t want to continue.

“There are going to be a lot of those blogs that
aren’t operating a year or two from now. A lot of people will
start it. It’s a fad and they’ll drop it,” he
said.

Though the popularity of blogging may die down, there will
always be people who will blog to be heard, Concoff said, adding
that “people just want a place to rant.”