1. Personal blogs and social
shaping: a qualitative approach
ELISABETTA LOCATELLI
UNIVERSITÀ CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE
DI MILANO
@WARM: Workshop on Advanced Research Methods –
Università “Carlo BO” - Urbino
30th September 2010

2. Blogs as User Generated Contents
 What are blogs?
Websites Personal
Web logs
Online organized in stream of
(diaries of
personal a news feed in
web
diaries chronological chronological
navigation)
reverse order reverse order
 Timeline
1997 1999 2003 2004 2006 2008 2010
First blogs First blogs Splinder Facebook Google buys Facebook August:
in USA in Italy MySpace Blogger success in Facebook is
Hi5 Italy the most
Twitter
LinkedIn visited
Netlog
website
Badoo

4. Methodology
 Objectives
 Investigate the microsocial processes of blog appropriation  focus on bloggers (blog owners).
 Understand blogs developement in Italy.
 Qualitative approach, focused on the context of use (Mason, 1996).
 Importance of following users in their practices to understand their “personal economies
of meaning” (Silverstone - Hirsch 1992).
 Mix of different methodologies, integrated and not “balkanized” (Lievrouw – Livingstone,
2006)
 Focus onpersonal blogs.
 No triangulation of methodologies (Cardano, 2003) but multi-sited approach (Marcus, 1995).
 Field of research as a “field of relations” (Hine, 2000).
 Researched as a bricoleur (Denzin – Lincoln, 2000).
 Continuous comparison between hypothesis and data  hermeneutic approach and Grounded Theory
(Glaser, Strauss, 1967).

5. Methodology
Explorative research
Blog desk Participant
analysis observation
Semi-structured
interviews

6. Methodology
 (1) Explorative research  follow the “biography of the object”
(Kopytoff 1992) in USA and Italy
 Culural product as a key for a firts interpretation (Griswold, 1994; Colombo, 2001, 2003
 Articles, essays, books, blogs with blogs history in USA and Italy
 Archive.org
 Identification of three phases in Italian blogsphere (now updating):
 2000: Early blogger
 2003: Creation of Splinder
 2006: Google buys Blogger
 …?
 Need to meet blogger and their practices
 (2) Participant observation at three blogger events:
 VlogEurope, Milan, 18th-19th November 2006
 PiùBlog, Rome, 8th-10th December
 RomeCamp, Rome, 21° January 2007

7. Methodology
 Enter the field (Hine 2000; Roversi 2001)
 (3) 26 Semi-structured interviews (12
females e 14 males)
Snowball and theoretical
 Privileged instrument for exploring microsocial field of
blog incorporation into daily practices (Silverstone sampling;
1992) and its “subjective meaning” (Roversi 2001) both Three cities (Milan, Rome;
at a material and symbolic level.
Turin);
 Exploration of feelings, perceptions, and images of blog
use (also done with the request of drawing their own’s Divided into the three
blog image) phases;
 (4) 50 Blog analysis (26 males and 24
females)
 Textual analysis with a semiotic grid (Cosenza 20062)

8. Results
 A double structure (Cfr. Hine 2000):
 Artifact
 Context of communication
 Strong interaction between
 Individuals
 Technology
 Social discourse
 Blog as a “boundary object” (Star - Griesemer 1989)
 Blogger as a “processor” able to convert a technological infrastructure in
social and cultural values (Silverstone - Hirsch 1994)
 Social Shaping of Technology as a theoretical framework for
comprehending the results.
 MacKenzie e Wajcman 1988
 Bijker et al. 1989
 Bijker 1995
 Fulk 1993; Schneider 2000

9. Results
 Blog as a “configurational
technology” (Fleck 1988):
 Its elements are shaped in the context of use
 Interpretive flexibility (Williams – Edge 1996)
 Material (script);
 Symbolical (meaning)
 User as prosumer (Toffler 1987):
 Consume and active production of contents
 Knowledge distribution:
 Horizontal (peer to peer)
 Vertical (groups; “opinion leaders”; experts)
 Closure
 Early blogger and relevant social groups
 Relevant institutional subjects
 Importance of imagination in
technology adoption and use

10. Going further: social networks
 Two qualitative research on social networks:
 Qualitative analysis (ethnography) of 6 profiles (3 male; 3 females) of
social networks profiles of social media heavy users (Facebook, Twitter,
FriendFeed + blog)
 50 telephonic interviews to young adults (19-15 years old) about new
media appropriation (mobile phone, IM, SN, blog) + social network
profiles analysis (cfr. www.testimonidigitali.it and Giaccardi 2010
forthcoming).
 Social networks are similar to blogs:
 Open (although less flexible in some case) structure;
 Need of user to close it;
 Performing elements;
 Role of the institutional subjects in the space definition;
 Relevance of the year of adoption on the meaning attributed to the
social network.

11. Methodological issues
 Blog and social networks as both objects and
instruments of research
 Becoming “friend” of the panel (?)
 Privacy (?)
 Accountability (?)
 Contextualization of profiles and contents
 Focus on subjects
 Mix different methods of research  “Multimodal methodology”
(Dicks 2006)
 Sample
 What about the relationship between blogs and social
networks and blogs and mainstream media?
 4° stage of development?

12. Thanks for your attention
elisabetta.locatelli@unicatt.it
theblogup.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/elisabettalocatelli
twitter.com/donnabetta

13. Bibliography
 Beer D., Burrows R. (2007), “Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations”, in Sociological
Research Online, vol. 12, Issue 5, disponibile al sito www.socresonline.org.uk/cgi-
bin/perlfect/search/search.pl?q=sure&showurl=%2F12%2F5%2F17.html
 Bijker W. E., Pinch T., Hughes T.P. (1989), The Social Construction of Technological Systems, MIT Press,
Cambridge Mass. - London.
 Blood R. (2002), The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining your Blog, Perseus
Books Group, (trad. it.: Weblog…il tuo diario online, Mondadori, Milano 2003).
 Blood R. (ed.) (2002), We’ve Got Blog: how weblogs are changing our culture, Perseus Books Group.
 Cosenza G. (20082), Semiotica dei nuovi media, Laterza, Roma-Bari.
 Cardano M. (2003), Tecniche di ricerca qualitativa. Percorsi di ricerca nelle scienze sociali, Carocci, Milano.
 Colombo F. (2001), in Colombo F., Farinotti L., Pasquali F., I margini della cultura, Franco Angeli, Milano,
2001.
 Colombo F. (2003), Introduzione allo studio dei media, Carocci, Roma, 2003.
 Di Fraia G. (a cura di) (2007), Blog-grafie. Identità narrative in rete, Guerini e Associati, Milano.
 Dicks B., Soyinka B., Coffey A. (2006), “Multimodal Ethnography”, in Qualitative Research, vol. 6 (1), 77-96.
 Glaser B. G., Strauss A. L. (1967), The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research,
Aldine Publishing Company, New York,.
 Griswold W. (1994), Cultures and Societies in a Changing World, Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, Cal.,
(trad. it.: Sociologia della cultura, Il Mulino, Bologna 2005).
 Hine C. (ed.) (2005), Virtual Methods. Issues in Social Research on the Internet, Berg, Oxford,New York.
 Hine C. (2000), Virtual Etnography, Sage, London.
 Jones, S. (ed.) (1999), Doing Internet Research. Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net, Sage
Publications, London et al.

14. Bibliography
 Kopytoff I. (1992), “The Cultural Life of Things: Commoditization as a Process”, in Appadurai A. (ed.), The
Social Life of Things. Commodities in a Cultural Perspective, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
 Lievrouw L. A., Livingstone S. (2006), Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Social Consequences of
ICTs. Updated Student Edition, Sage, London et al., (trad. it.: Capire i nuovi media, Hopli, Milano 2007).
 MacKenzie D., Wajcman J. (1988), The Social Shaping of Technology: How the Refrigetor got its Hum,
Milton Keynes, Philadelphia.
 Marcus G. E. (1995), “Ethnography in/of the World System: the Emergence of Multisided Ethnography”, in
Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 24, 95-117.
 Mason J. (1996), Qualitative Researching, Sage, London.
 Murthy D. (2008), “Digital Ethnography: An Examination of the Use of New Technologies for Social
Research”, in Sociology, vol. 42.
 Roversi A. (2001), Chat line: luoghi ed esperienze della vita in rete, Il Mulino, Bologna.
 Salzano D. (2008), Etnografie della rete. Pratiche comunicative tra online e offline, Franco Angeli, Milano.
 Schneider V. (2000), “Evolution in Cyberspace: the Adaptation of NationalVideotext Systems to the Internet”,
in The Information Society, vol. 16, 319-328.
 Silverstone R., Hirsch E. (eds.) (1992), Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Space,
Routledge, London.
 Star S. L., Griesemer J. R. (1989), “Institutional Ecology, “Translation” and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and
Professional in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39”, in Social Studies of Science, Sage, London
et al, vol. 19, 387-420.
 Williams R., “The Social Shaping of Information and Communications Technologies”, disponibile al sito
http://www.rcss.ed.ac.uk/SLIM/public/phase1/SSICT.html. Zucca G. (2008), “Limiti e problemi della ricerca
qualitativa ai tempi del web 2.0: il caso dei blog”, paper discusso durante il convegno AIS - Metodologia il 6-7-
8 novembre 2008 a Milano.