Observing the Blogosphere

For my fourth essay, my assignment was to explore the blogoshere. “The blogosphere is a collective term encompassing all blogs and their interconnections. It is the perception that blogs exist together as a connected community, or as a social network.”

After looking around this ‘blogosphere’ for a while I chose the blog called redrants.com. This is an unofficial Manchester United Team blog created by loyal Manchester United fans. It is a highly active blog which generates hundreds of responses to each article written by the main contributor who’s user handle is ‘red ranter’. This blog allows fans of the team to come together and interact from all over the world. Fans typically go on rants reacting to the articles posted, voice team frustrations, predict lineups, and almost anything else you can possibly think of. I chose this section of the online community because like everyone else belonging to this blog, I too, am an avid Manchester United supporter. I observed the interactions on this blog for over a week and also posted a few comments as well. (User name: cr7boywonder) After reading every article and user post for over a week, I saw one main theme that Aaron Barlow discusses in his book, Blogging America, occurring over and over again. The theme that Barlow spoke about that was constantly jumping out at me was the new ‘horizontal’ structure of journalism. (Barlow, 2008)

Blogs have a ‘horizontal structure’ because it is democratic and anyone who chooses to participate in the conversation can actively do so. (Barlow, 2008) Traditional journalism, which tends to follow a ‘vertical structure’ is far different from that of blogs. This type of structure tends to have a hierarchy where only trained journalists or elite write about a specific topic. (Barlow, 2008) There are gatekeepers who regulate what types and forms of information are put out to the public. This is where blogs differ from this vertical structure. Anyone can post to a blog, without being a trained journalist. These people who decide to openly post or write about a topic who are not professional journalists can be called a ‘citizen journalist’. (Barlow, 2008) There are no ‘gatekeepers’ to regulate or say what information can be posted for internet users to instantly access and read.(Barlow, 2008)

This theme is represented many times through interactions and posts that I read while I was observing and participating on the redrants blog. The first way this ‘horizontal structure’ was demonstrated on the blog was by the pre-match lineup predictions. Before every game, hundreds on users log on to this blog and guess which lineup the Manchester United manager will send out to the pitch. There are all different views and opinions of the lineups and tactics that will be used by hundreds of fans. This interaction and conversation shows that blogs are democratic, and anyone who chooses to participate in a conversation can do so without being part of the upper end of the hierarchy. (referring to the vertical structure) (Barlow, 2008) A second way that I learned this new ‘horizontal structure’ was in effect for blogs was through my own post. Early Tuesday, November 11th, Owen Hargreaves, an important midfield player for the United club was ruled out for the rest of the season due to injury. Once I found out about this I immediately post to the blog, “hargreaves is out for the rest of the season. he played a vital role down the stretch last year to help united with the double, with scholes out and nani struggling in the midfield fergie better get something together before we fall too far behind.” This post stirred up a small conversation as frustrated fans then preceded to voice their frustrations and ongoing worries about the team. Now, I have never taken a journalism class in my life and was not trying to be professional, yet I was still allowed to post this comment. This shows that there are no gatekeepers in the structure to regulate who or what type of information is put up on the site. (Barlow, 2008) It also furthers the point that anyone can take part in the new form of ‘horizontal’ journalism and write whatever they choose to a blog.

After observing and actively participating on a blog for over a week, I now truly understand what this new type of ‘horizontal’ journalism is. It is truly democratic, as it allows anyone, professional or unprofessional, to write whatever they want without any regulation. It also shows that journalism does not have to follow a ‘vertical structure’ in order to be successful and that this new form of ‘horizontal’ journalism may catch on quicker than we think. (Barlow, 2008)

From:
Barlow, Aaron. (2008). Blogging America. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Observation #5

My final observation day was Tuesday, November 11th. Red Ranter’s article was quite brief and just stated that all rants, frustrations, conversation and thoughts should go below his post. He seemed very irritated, like many other Manchester fans with the current form of the team, and just left a window open for the fans to converse a bout current topics. I put up a number of posts today in response to team news that happened over the night and early this morning. The first comment I made was about Sir Alex Ferguson’s (manager of Manchester) outburst at the English Premiership. He was upset because of his team having all away games on the schedule after their Champions League matches which take place midweek. (my handle is cr7boywonder) No one responded to this message and could have been due to when I put up the comment. I put it up during lineup predictions and it seemed that no one wanted to be bothered with this topic. A few hours later in the day, it was announced over in England that star midfielder Owen Hargreaves was out for the remainder of the season. As soon as I read this I posted the news on the blog, it generated a few responses. Fans again were upset, as this news added more fuel to the fire. The team is in great danger of finishing trophy-less as their problems continue to build up and no one was afraid to tell their peers how they felt. Fans ended the responses from today’s blog just hoping that the team can get their act together, and quick enough to salvage the season.

Observation #4

My fourth day of observation on redrants came on Saturday, November 8th. Today is the day of the big league clash against Arsenal which was spoken about in many earlier blogs on the site. The third and fourth place teams play each other for positioning as well as bragging rights. I woke up at 7 this morning to watch this game live from England on the computer, because it wasn’t televised in the States. I read the blog before the game and redranter posted and interesting dialogue he had with an Arsenal insider. The insider explained to red ranter that Arsenal’s coach Arsen Wenger, is frustrated with injuries to his team and feels that the league has it out to hurt his players. This did not go to well with the people who blog on this site because this is a Manchester fan page and their team has their own share of injury problems. They have 4 out of the usual 11 starters out with injury so they are in the same boat as Arsenal and were not afraid to voice their opinion. After the game was over, and Manchester suffered a disappointing 2-1 defeat at the hands of Arsenal fans were irate. They bashed the players and coaching and suggested many different ways to try to improve the situation. Even though they were bashing and irate, you could tell that the people involved in the conversation are still extremely loyal to the club and just getting their frustrations out to their peers.

Observation #3

My third day of observation came on Wednesday, November 5th. Red Ranter previewed the big Champions league game today between Manchester United and Celtic FC. The Champions league is a continental battle between the best teams in Europe to crown one true champion in May. Manchester United won this prestigious trophy last season, which is why their fans are extremely concerned with the slow start to this season. Bloggers gave their predictions for the Manchester starting lineups and tactics that the coach would use. Some fans disagreed with other’s defensive lineups because they felt that with certain players in goals could not be scored to seal a victory. While observing this blog later on that day during the evening hours I found something to be quite astonishing. From 2:45 – 4:15pm, which is the time that the game took place, there were over 250 comments. The fans were conversing about what was going on during the game! This blog serves as a platform for fans to communicate instantly during the game. Fans could voice their frustrations along with their brief spells of happiness and speak about what was happening with everyone else. I never thought of using a blog this way, but it looks to be extremely successful.

Observation #2

My second day of observation happened on Monday, November 3rd. Red ranter discusses the situation with United’s best player, Cristiano Ronaldo, and also about the scary but realistic truth about what is going on with Manchester’s poor start to the season. The first half of the comments towards the blog seemed to be written in a very optimistic tone. This is due mainly to Ronaldo committing himself to the club through next season. This was a huge issue over the summer months because the Spanish giants of Real Madrid were trying to lure Ronaldo to their club. Although he was tempted in the end he wound up staying, and this morning he committed himself fully to the club and looks to be getting back on track after he netted two goals against Hull City over the weekend. A few hours after the blog was put up and people discussed Ronaldo, many of the fans began to voice their worries about their team. They admitted that the club does not look like they did last year at this time and that they are suffering from player injuries and also sub-par performances. Things seem to be pretty glum right about now.

Observation #1

The blog that I chose to observe for my fourth essay is redrants.com. This is an unofficial Manchester United Team blog created by loyal Manchester United fans. It is a highly active blog which generates hundreds of responses to each article written by the main contributor who’s user handle is ‘red ranter’. My first day of observation for the blog took place on Sunday, November 2nd. Red ranter wrote about Saturday’s league game against Hull City, which resulted in a 4-3 victory for United. Although United got the victory and the full three points they needed desperately there was still a negative tone to the responses written by the users of the blog. Giving up three goals at home to a mediocre team has gotten fans worried about the Manchester United defense and midfield. They played well for the first 60 minutes, and then down the stretch during the last 30 they let in 2 weak goals. I saw the game myself and agree with the comments from the users. The users spoke back and forth giving suggestions on ways the manger can improve the situation. By reading what everyone else had to say I saw many different aspects of how to resolve the problem from the broad range of fans.

Freedom vs. Commercial

In Blogging America, by Aaron Barlow, the author discusses the role that blogs play in today’s popular culture. He presents the differences of blogging for writers at the individual and commercial levels and how blogging for one end differs completely from the other.

First the author speaks about how important it is for an individual to have the freedom to write and the ability to blog. This allows the author to publish what they want in their blog on internet. The advantage that blogging has over traditional writing in a magazine or newspaper is that allows instant feedback on the author’s work. This allows the author to hear opinions from readers that may agree or disagree with what they have written. Receiving feedback from people who have read article will improve the author’s writing skills, and ultimately make the author’s writing skills stronger. Barlow sites Rosenberg when he speaks about these, ‘seeds of freedom’ and how important it is for us to have these freedoms in today’s society. (p. 114) Blogs can be described as, “this participatory platform allowing people to bypass cultural gatekeepers of all sorts, helping loosen control of content of communication pathways that has for so long rested in the hands of commercial entities.” (Barlow, 2008) This tells us that individual blogs enable writers to exercise their freedom without having to deal with any limitations or gatekeepers that control what is published.

When an author writes at the corporate level, or for a company many can argue that the author’s own words or feelings are not being used. The author’s views or topics written about can be controlled by the gatekeeper of the company. The gatekeeper’s objective is to publish stories and articles that will sell to the media and keep readers coming back for more. When this is the goal, author’s topics and opinions are controlled by this gatekeeper and they are then not able to voice their true feelings because they are catering to what others want to hear.

After reading this chapter I now understand the differences between blogging for yourself with an open mind and no limitations, versus blogging at the commercial level. Blogging for a company means having to deal with gatekeepers that control what is written to satisfy the audience, and to sell your product. For an author to decide which level to write at they must ask themselves what is more important, “Writing to voice their own opinions and feelings, or selling a product?”

From:
Barlow, Aaron. (2008). Blogging America. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.