The main place to look these days for my unpublished academic thoughts is the (unofficial) Media@LSE Group Weblog which I set up for myself and my fellow PhD students. For more personal links and commentary, see my personal weblog, started in 2001 - blog.org, and you can consult my journalistic writing for a less-academically-rigorous look at my interest in the social impact of the Internet over the years.
Summary of current PhD research Please note: if you are a UK blogger - and particularly if you have found your way here because I have contacted you as part of my thesis research - please don't read any further. I wouldn't want your answers to my questions to be influenced by what you think of my own approach to the topic. Private Lives Lived in Public: Weblogs and Self Performance
In the few years since the technology emerged, weblogs have become increasingly popular - seven percent of online Americans have one (Rainie 2005) - and are the focus of media and academic interest. Much of this interest has concentrated on the use of weblogs for political expression or knowledge management, but according to one survey, around 70 percent of weblogs are created as personal journals (Herring et al. 2004).
This study will provide a qualitative description of personal weblogging practice in a particular context - that of London-based authors, purposively sampled to provide demographic variety, who have created their sites using either LiveJournal or Blogger's software. This description will be based on semi-structured interviews with the authors supplemented by examination of the sites they have produced. It will focus on the manner in which self-performance on weblogs may be influenced by a number of social factors. One influence is their relationship with their audiences (real and imagined). Another is the emergent norms of this genre - the extent to which webloggers come to believe that, for example, public revelation of what was once considered private is not just possible but expected in the context of a weblog (Finnegan 1997, Killoran 2003). And lastly the thesis will examine how self-performance is constrained by the capabilities and limitations of the technology chosen. Some weblog technologies allow authors to control who sees what they write - others do not. Similarly some assume authors will seek comments on what they write and others do not.
References for the above (those not online)
Papers, reports, essays and presentations written or in progress
(Abstracts or full text are linked in description where available. For full text of other articles, contact me)
Date Publication Description Mar 2008 Meeting Their Potential: The Role of Education and Technology in Overcoming Disadvantage and Disaffection in Young People One of the co-authors of this report by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency Mar 2008 Hargrave, A. M. and M. Livingstone Sonia Harm and Offence in Media Content: Updating the 2005 Review Contributor to this literature review covering recent research into potential harm from television, electronic games and the Internet In press Chapter in Digital Storytelling, Mediatized Stories: Self-Representations in New Media, (Lundby, K. ed.) Peter Lang, New York. Shaping the 'me' in MySpace: The framing of profiles on a social network site 2007 Presentation at ICA San Francisco Filling the 'About Me' Box 2007 Chapter [translated to Norwegian] in Personal Media: Life between Screens (Glyndenhal) Personal Webloggers and Their Audiences: Who Do They Think They Are Talking To? 2005 Livingstone, S. and A. M. Hargrave (2006) Harm and Offence in Media Content: A Review of the Evidence, Intellect, Bristol. Contributor to this literature review covering research into potential harm from a wide range of media including electronic games, (mobile) telephony and the Internet 2005 New Media & Society, 7 (3), p. 425 Book Review: Cyberprotest: New Media, Citizens and Social Movements Aug 2003 MSc Dissertation Missing the grassroots?
Factors shaping the political use of the Internet among UK activistsApril 2003 LSE coursework for
Citizenship and the Media (Professor Stephen Coleman)E-Democracy and Deliberative Democracy:
How do technology and democracy interact?Feb 2003 LSE coursework for
New Media, Information and Knowledge Systems (Professor Robin Mansell )Do the new digital media enable wider participation in the public sphere? December 2002 LSE coursework for
Theories and Concepts in Media and CommunicationsDo the newer media require a different analysis
of power relations as compared to older media?December 2002 LSE coursework for
Information SystemsI have also contributed to several encyclopedias:
2007 'Personal Publishing' entry
2006 Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and the Media 'Chat Rooms', 'Bulletin Boards', 'Electronic Games Effects' entries 2004 Human 'Mass Media' entry
My work at New Scientist has been cited in papers including:
Introna, L. D. and H. Nissenbaum (2000) "Shaping the Web: Why the Politics of Search Engines Matters", The Information Society, 16 (3), pp. 169-185(17).
and Lawrence, S. and C. L. Giles (1998) "Searching the World Wide Web ", Science, 280 (5360), pp. 98-100.
The article most cited is Lost in Cyberspace which is gone from New Scientist's public pages but is still available via the Internet Archive.