This study analyses the code-switching variety Taglish (Tagalog-English) in personal weblogs written by Filipino bloggers.The main research questions are set forth in chapter one: why do writers of weblogs code-switch in contexts where there is no specific addressee and hence no turn taking, and why is 'this' particular language chosen at 'this' juncture in the weblog narrative?Chapter two gives an overview of relevant code-switching theory and research, and focuses especially on the sociolinguistic dimensions. In particular, the markedness model of Myers-Scotton is reviewed with respect to the notion of code-switching itself as an unmarked choice. This sets the stage for introducing Taglish as a normal and unmarked phenomenon for many Filipinos.Chapter three presents the socio-political and linguistic background in the Philippines. This give a backdrop for a focus on the evolution and status of Taglish.The problems associated with the presentation of self in Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) are examined in Chapter four and then the unique characteristics of weblogs are explored with respect to their purpose and genre.Chapter five looks at the design and methodology employed and emphasises the qualitative nature of the research and the sampling method as purposive. The main corpus of 25 extracts were analysed using frameworks which bring important perspectives to bear on the use of code-switching in the construction and negotiation of identity. These frameworks are: the referee design dimension of Bell's audience design model with its emphasis on initiative style shifts to project different identities; discursive psychology which highlights the use of language to position self and others; and narrative psychology with its stress on people's use of narrative to seek coherence of self and life-experience. These frameworks are combined with Bakhtinian notions of polyphony, dialogism and heteroglossia.Chapter six gives the detailed results of the analysis of seven weblogs which typify the findings of the corpus. Code-switching on these weblogs highlights the creative end of language use. However, it is a creativity tempered by the realities of Bakhtinian heteroglossia. The heteroglossic nature of the code-switching, in seemingly monological texts, is implicated in how the bloggers negotiate and construct social identities by positioning themselves and others in the ongoing narrative flow. In that the code-switching is extremely plentiful in this non-oral environment, it poses a serious challenge to the attempts by some conversational analysts (e.g., Li, 2005) to claim that code-switching can only really be explicated in terms of the systematics of an interaction taking place. The research seeks to stay within the spirit of CA by suggesting that even in a seemingly monologic form, interaction may be reconceived as heteroglossia covertly present in all language and overtly manifest in switching. Thus switching is not merely a product of how speakers attend to the orderly production of conversation, but also a product of how they attend to the inherent heteroglossic nature of language and exploit their linguistic repertoire maximally to make their communication as effective as possible, and to construct and negotiate multiple identities.

Today�s globalized network communication initiates new interactive formats, transforming not only the dissemination, but - increasingly - the production of news. The �one-way� flow of news from a news outlet to the audience has been replaced by a network structure. Following Castells� concept of the �network� (1996) as the central model of information structures, I perpetuate this paradigmatic shift and suggest that networks also transform the professional journalism sphere in many world regions. A revised sphere of journalism is taking shape in which an increasingly global flow of news is evolving and a multiple platform structure of journalism is taking shape in which boundaries between traditional media outlets of print, radio, and television and between national and �foreign� journalism are blurring. Furthermore, I argue that a globalized journalistic network sphere is emerging which involves �traditional� journalistic outlets and bloggers, media activists, so-called citizen journalists, or user-generated content providers alike. These new journalistic spheres of connectivity establish new (and continuous) links between journalists, their sources as well as their audiences. This fundamental change creates new professional levels of connectivity on one hand and on the other, has severe strategic and organizational implications for the management of print, broadcast and online news outlets. Within this new �network� sphere of journalistic practice, the roles of journalistic outlets change. This work suggests a framework that helps to understand journalistic organization today, with innovative work structures based on digital technologies transforming the character and in effect substituting the model of �top-down� journalism models by a model that is far more complicated. I argue that within an evolving global news sphere, information flows are multidirectional. Decentralization and non-linearity become the key parameters defining news flows at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The character of this network in the journalism sphere is transnational, crossmedia, and cross professions. Based on results of thirteen qualitative interviews with media practitioners in Germany, the US and the UK, I argue that a new geography of journalism is taking shape in which journalistic outlets are being transformed into nodes. These nodes are arranged in a dense net of information gathers, producers and disseminators and the interactive connections among them constitute what I want to call network journalism.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 214-225).

AbstractTitle: Private or public? A study of the content in the celebrity blog and the readers'comments. (Privat eller offentlig? En studie av kändisbloggens innehåll och läsarnaskommentarer)Number of pages: 36 (37 including enclosure)Author: Karoline FrankTutor: Else NygrenCourse: Media and Communication studies CPeriod: Fall semester 2009University: Uppsala UniversityAim: The aim of this study is to examine the boundary between the private and the public asit is expressed in a number of blogs written by Swedish celebrities.Material/Method: Qualitative textual analysis of four blogs written by Swedishcelebrities.The total amount of analyzed blog posts were 120, since 30 posts from each of theblogs were selected. Also the comments on the blog posts, given by the blog readers wereexamined.Main results: The examined blogs written by celebrities contain both issues that can beconsidered as private and public. The celebrities write about their families, especially theirchildren but, also about their partners as well as they write about things such as movies orrestaurants that they recommend. They also express their emotions relatively often. Only twoof the celebrities wrote something that can be considered to associate with their professionbut, only in one blog post each. Also, two of the celebrities made a treatment against media.Keywords: celebrities, blogs, private, public, Thompson, Giddens, qualitative analysis,comments

<p>What are the meanings of "here" and "there" in a digital age? This dissertation explores how blogs reveal new meanings of being "here" in a political space, how blogs reveal new meanings of being (or not being) "here" in a textually-mediated universe, and how blogs reveal new ways of being seen to be "here" when most internet users are just looking and log on and off without saying a word. Beginning with a reflection on the possibilities of democracy in a world where the interface is drawn to the forefront, I argue that the internet presents a new (and imperfect) way for citizens to operate the machinery of government. Next, I consider the consequences of this interface being available to people regardless of their geographic locations or national origins. I argue that citizenship in a digital moment is more closely bound to participation than it is to blood or territory and construct a notion of virtual transnational citizenship.</p><p> Such a notion of transnational citizenship does not signal the end of place and the irrelevance of presence and absence. Instead, it reveals that these concepts must be rethought and refigured. Bloggers flicker between absence and presence: in the blogosphere, every post may be a blogger's last, but there may just be another one waiting for us if we'll click reload. With this ambiguity in mind, I outline a digital ethics of reading that is attentive to both of these possibilities. Finally, I turn to the vast majority of blog users: the "lurkers" who read silently but do not write. I untangle reading, writing, and inscription in order to produce an understanding of how reading works in the blogosphere and argue that the lurker is not so much the reader who does not write as the reader who has not yet written.</p><p> By tracing the meanings of "here" and "there" through the blogosphere, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of what it means to be -politically and metaphysically -in the age of the internet.</p> / Dissertation

There is a tendency within intersectional blogging discourse for settlers to ignore the ongoing colonial process occurring on Turtle Island. This pattern is bound up in a settler common sense that understands settler occupancy as inherent and natural. Such an approach to intersectional-type work ignores the manner in which all oppressive actions on Turtle Island are occurring on Indigenous lands. Regardless of a settler’s intersections, their presence on Indigenous lands indicates that they are implicated in an ongoing process of colonization. This thesis identifies and examines how intersectional bloggers are writing about issues pertaining to Indigenous peoples and nations. It is argued that through the exploration of Indigenous feminist writing, intersectional settler blogging has the potential to work towards decolonization and solidarity with Indigenous nations. This thesis draws from the work of Indigenous feminist blogs in order to gain insight on how settlers can begin to decolonize their own work. / Graduate

With the continual expansion of social media, organization-public relationships (OPR) have become all the more important to keep up with consumers. While historically companies have maintained a public relations office, a relatively new idea of actually building relationships through the media has started to emerge through social media. Using observations of bloggers through a netnographic study and discourse analysis, this paper confirms that corporate executive blogs can be used to effectively manage customer relations. Using a sample of 123 blog posts and comments from the medical, technology, and travel industries, this study validates that OPRs can be maintained and strengthened through blogs while justifying the time commitment and devotion executives give to keep in touch with consumers. / text

Blogging has been one of the most popular means of computer-mediated communication in recent years. It is generally agreed that blogging has replaced traditional diary writing and functioned as a useful tool for individuals to present themselves and construct their self-images. Its popularity has also drawn the attention of many scholars and much research has been conducted to investigate the different issues related to the presentation of identities by bloggers particularly adolescents. Despite the significant impact of blogging on adolescent identity development, few attempts have been made to explore the role of contextual elements in identity construction. Moreover, most previous studies on blogs were conducted in separation from the bloggers and their offline world. The blogging world was not well-connected to the bloggers’ other aspects of lives. The current study has adopted a constructionist approach to explore the identity construction of a group of Hong Kong adolescents. The notion of communities of practice is used to conceptualize the nonymous context of the blogging world. More importantly, more attention is paid to various contextual elements which constitute the online community of practice so as to gain a more comprehensive understanding of online identity work. The analysis examines the textual and non-textual elements of blogs to investigate how the adolescents construct different forms of identity which manifest their engagement in the online communities of practice. It shows that the nonymous context has resulted in adolescents presenting a wide range of desirable qualities which include interpersonal-related qualities, academic related qualities, personal related qualities and family-related qualities throughout their blogs. The construction which enables the adolescents to fulfill numerous developmental tasks is not done in isolation but in response to their interaction with the members of the blogging community. The importance of audience as a contextual element is seen in their role as identity co-constructors who help reinforce or supplement the blog owners’ identity presentation from time to time. Furthermore, a strong connectedness between the adolescents’ online and offline identity is observed. The offline world serves as another community of practice which interacts with the online world – the community of practice under investigation. The study suggests that the diverse forms of identity constructed online are strong evidence showing the adolescents’ competence in performing sophisticated identity work. It is also expected that there will be more interaction between various communities and their contextual elements in the future development of identity construction with the rapid penetration of social-networking tools in our everyday lives, especially adolescents. An overlap between different online communities is seen in the current study. More thorough examination of adolescent identity work through social-networking tools can provide valuable insights into the emotional health and well-being of adolescents over time. / published_or_final_version / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

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The purpose of this research is twofold. Firstly, this research aims to investigate whether the design preferences of bloggers in selected countries from different cultural backgrounds are influenced by national culture traits. The investigation involves two categories of blogs selected within a country where the bloggers share similar attributes such as language or geographical location. Secondly, simultaneously, this research intends to discover the possibility of the impact of group level influence on design preferences of bloggers who are linked together in a network through bloggers’ linkage or blogrolls. To achieve the said purposes, observations on both the global and local blogs of six selected countries are conducted using the content analysis method. This method allows this research to observe web pages and rate design preferences of bloggers via a coding system, similar to the method used to analyse documents or manuscripts to find common themes or keywords. A total of 612 blogs (306 global and 306 local) are observed for a period of nine months to identify cultural traits on design behaviour based on national culture indicators chosen from prominent literatures. To prevent a systematic error, an independent second observer was appointed and the results obtained are compared using a statistical methodology. In addition, translators were also engaged to verify that the translations are of a correct meaning and comprehension since blogs use various national languages on their web pages. The data were statistically tested using SPSS engaging in statistical analysis of frequency table, Cross-Tabulation and cluster analyses and MANOVA. Results shown that design preferences between both the global and local blogs in each country, has significant differences in most of the design indicators chosen. The findings indicate that the national culture influence on design preferences in linked networks of blogs is weakening indicating another type of influence might be in existence. The results also provide evidence that blogs in linked networks are statistically significant as a cluster or a group by themselves and are independent from one cluster to another. The research, however, studies only six countries from six different cultural dimensions. The inclusion of other countries, similar to or different from the countries under investigation, would be an added advantage. Furthermore, the use of only a single type of global blog provider (blogspot.com) in this research could be extended to other global blog providers such as wordpress.com to give fairer coverage of major and popular global blogs as well as providing a wider generalisation effect of the research findings.