Maria Milonas Warsaw University, Poland I come from Warsaw, the capital of Poland. I am a blogger since 2001. I used to be a classic blogger I became a metablogger – I observe, I analyse, I try to find rules. I am on my way to write a doctorate about the social impact of blogs. http://jej.notatnik.net

POLISH BLOGS ARE C-LOGS http://jej.notatnik.net

Imagine… In Poland a blog is an interactive diary written online. No J-logs, no K-logs, no RSS, … Only posts and comments. under-developed or different? All important journals and magazines wrote about blogs wondering about whether it was normal or not to publish exhibitional information and emotions. Our blogs are either diaries or eventually places of art – drawing blogs, photo blogs, or poetry blogs. We have blogs written by mothers, blogs describing the pregnancy, blogs of teachers, priests, written from the point of view of a dog, or thematically focused on one side of life. But we have no J-logs, no K-logs. We do not use trackbacks, RSS XML or other acronyms which I don’t understand. http://jej.notatnik.net

Some facts > 100,000 blogs Gierszewski’s survey (2002) 1000 bloggers chosen aleatory from www.blog.pl database, 411 answers 62% of blogs are written by women The biggest over-representation of women is at school. Among working people and people with higher education the number of man increases significantly. And there is an over-representation of women in cities from 50,000 to 500,000 inhabitants which is not such significant in bigger cities. Having a blog is trendy. It is cool and sometimes it is even needed in the school social life. http://jej.notatnik.net

Sex http://jej.notatnik.net

Some facts > 100,000 blogs Gierszewski’s survey (2002) 1000 bloggers chosen aleatory from www.blog.pl database, 411 answers 62% of blogs are written by women 75% of bloggers are 20 or less The biggest over-representation of women is at school. Among working people and people with higher education the number of man increases significantly. And there is an over-representation of women in cities from 50,000 to 500,000 inhabitants which is not such significant in bigger cities. Having a blog is trendy. It is cool and sometimes it is even needed in the school social life. http://jej.notatnik.net

Age http://jej.notatnik.net

Some facts > 100,000 blogs Gierszewski’s survey (2002) 1000 bloggers chosen aleatory from www.blog.pl database, 411 answers 62% of blogs are written by women 75% of bloggers are 20 or less 90% write from home The biggest over-representation of women is at school. Among working people and people with higher education the number of man increases significantly. And there is an over-representation of women in cities from 50,000 to 500,000 inhabitants which is not such significant in bigger cities. Having a blog is trendy. It is cool and sometimes it is even needed in the school social life. http://jej.notatnik.net

Where do you use Internet? http://jej.notatnik.net

A Polish blog A diary A conversation An autotherapy Parzuchowski’s survey (2001) Anonymous Sincere Emotional There was a survey of another Polish student. More than a 1000 of respondents, unhappily not chosen by the researcher but those who wanted to participate. So it was not representative for the bloggers’ group. But one conclusion was important. A majority of bloggers feels better after having posted. There is an important group that declare that the aim of their writing is to understand themselves. Conversation – sometimes our blogs become asynchronic chats (more than 1000 comments under a unsignificant post) http://jej.notatnik.net

Why Polish young women write blogs? Psychological answer Technological answer Sociological answer http://jej.notatnik.net

Psychological answer ANALYSIS - I am alone NEED - I want you to talk to me TRANSACTION - I am ready to make myself nude Would you please give me some attention? http://jej.notatnik.net

Psychological answer 2 My blog is my castle where I decide EGO - My blog is the virtual prolongation of myself The need to control our lives. The need to control our realtionships. The possibility to promote oneself and exist in the virtual reality. http://jej.notatnik.net

Technological answer It is easy to blog When you start blogging you receive a webpage with some place on a server. You have this design and access to some precreated designs. You don’t have to know neither html nor other languages, you can simply post. The time factor is really important. You don’t have to be online, which sometimes is in Poland a problem – we still have a majority of dialups whrough modems, where the price of being online is really high. Finally we can treat the blog as a place. We say: “see you on the blog” and we treat blogs as Oldenburgs’s Third Places that „exist on neutral ground and serve to level their guests to a condition of social equality. Within these places, conversation is the primary activity and the major vehicle for the display and appreciation of human personality and individuality.” http://jej.notatnik.net

The complete acces to the html code. A SMS to become blogger. A possibility to send SMS to a blogger without knowing his number. WAP blogging. A post, some comments, on the left side a Visitors’ book and the archives, on the right side a pre-created place to links to other blogs or websites. The complete acces to the html code. http://jej.notatnik.net

Technological answer It is easy to blog A blog is asynchronic A blog is a place. A blog is the Third Place When you start blogging you receive a webpage with some place on a server. You have this design and access to some precreated designs. You don’t have to know neither html nor other languages, you can simply post. The time factor is really important. You don’t have to be online, which sometimes is in Poland a problem – we still have a majority of dialups whrough modems, where the price of being online is really high. Finally we can treat the blog as a place. We say: “see you on the blog” and we treat blogs as Oldenburgs’s Third Places that „exist on neutral ground and serve to level their guests to a condition of social equality. Within these places, conversation is the primary activity and the major vehicle for the display and appreciation of human personality and individuality.” http://jej.notatnik.net

Sociological answer There is no Net generation There is deep individualism We are a community of technology (SMS, e-mails, weblogs) A generation is a construct used to describe people of the same age. Actually, there is no community of age. Tha basic element of a generation is a common experience. In Poland, in Europe, we do not have this. Perhaps in a few years we could say that there was a generation of September 11th. Those whose growing up was touched by this tragedy. But nowadays we do not have generations. A POlish sociologist said that participating in a generation is a privilege. We are rather in a world of deep individualism. A world full of indiviuals, not only conscient of their specificity and uniqueness but also often focused on themselves. Internet gives us a community. It is above all a community of technology. We communicate through Internet, through e-mails, SMS, finally we communicate through weblogs. Our community of technology become our reference group. Although there is no common age, no common culture, no common experiences. It is stronger than the non-existing generation. http://jej.notatnik.net

C-log Communication Community A blog is a virtual place where people can meet not only with the content but also with the person who stays behind the words. http://jej.notatnik.net

Do you have personal contact with other bloggers? http://jej.notatnik.net

What for? A virtual social life A life in group, with all group dynamics, conflicts and leader rises. Love between bloggers, affairs, and at least friendship. Cheats (like a the diary of dead – a blog that ended by the would-be dead of a young boy, and now is the place of pilgrimages where young bloggers make their symbolic travel), actions of charity (a blog of a young boy with leukaemia which serves to promote the need) Dokument.blog.pl http://jej.notatnik.net

C-log = Virtual social life Group dynamics (leaders, conflicts) Friendship Love Agressivity Trust Family blogs, kids blogs, parents blogs, gay blogs Books, films (dokument.blog.pl) Love between bloggers is real. I know even a real love affair, a blogger- man , his fiancee, a blogger-woman… Friendship is growing up We have a specific behaviour – we called it killikg, when a group of bloggers decide to kill a blogger. To kill a blogger is to force him to commit a blogsuicide – close the blog. Trust – we had some charity actions. Some were real, others were not. A lot of social groups are represented. We have gay and lesbian blogs, familly blogs, kids blogs… it is also the possibility to learn about people we have never meet, it can attentuate conflicts of generation. In a certain way it is educating to life in the society. In the Polish society, which is said to be intolerant, it has good consequences. It is a free access to other people minds. http://jej.notatnik.net

Social evolution Mono-log (I say) Dia-log (I talk) Community-log (We blogtalk) => map of http://www.blog.pl I say, my monolog is not directly adressed to readers. I start to enter in interaction with other bloggers, I talk with them on my blog, on their blogs. I participate in a community, where the aim is less to post (one way communication) but mostly to communicate (two-ways communication). Not the content but the process. And if you are not in, you are not always able to follow the conversation – it starts here, continues on another blog, comes back and often uses words known only in the group We try to draw the map. There would be a double analysis – on the base of links and on the base of comments. But to do a map from 50,000 blogs we need really good computers. http://jej.notatnik.net

While J-logs take the role of news, K-logs are encyclopedies, C-logs are like a social event. In Poland we like entertainment :) Do you? http://jej.notatnik.net

Maria Cywińska-Milonas Dziękuję ! Maria Cywińska-Milonas http://jej.notatnik.net marysia@notatnik.net http://jej.notatnik.net