Earlier I talked about the conflicts between two pro-globalization movements: globalization-from-above and globalization-from-below. The blogosphere is clearly a protagonist in the globalization-from-below movement. With Google buying Blogger and Dr. Pepper starting a blog, all this could change, of course.
Now that blogging is big time, bloggers are thinking more about what blogging “means.” The Happy Tutor over at Wealth Bondage pointed me to the heart of a blogging symposium on the ethics of blogging, a conversation I had only slightly overhead previously. After reading several excellent posts, the crux of the debate seems to be the commodification of blogging and what that says about questions of authenticity. Is the blogger for real or a poser?
Tom Coates leads a thorough discussion at PlasticBag.org. Blogging is usually free or cheap. But, says Tom, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and you pay with the soul of your site – the place you’ve carved out as a place of personal expression becomes yet another platform to sell rich teenagers Nike shoes…” The blogosphere is not free; there are dozens of hidden costs. The only thing in this world that does come perfectly free is sunlight (with a nod to Georges Bataille). And even then you have to be careful about too much of a good thing.
Blogs, democracy, and rules
The Happy Tutor summarizes Tom’s post as thus: “So how do we go from the aesthetics [of blogging] to politics and democracy?” In my mind, though, you can’t easily separate aesthetics from politics. It’s precisely the blosphere’s aethetics–in particular the links, trackbacks, and comments–that align it with the globalization-from-below movement. Like any other “underground movement,” it can and will be commodified. The only question is to what extent. And here we have a choice.
When I moved to Atlanta a couple or three years ago, a cell phone ad featured Martin Luther King, Jr. giving his “I have a dream speech.” Previously I had been under the impression that MLK’s image had not been overly commodified solely out of respect. In Atlanta I learned that it had as much to do with the King family zealously claiming MLK’s persona as its own commodity. It was King’s son who sold permission to use King’s image to the cell phone company. And since then his son has all but disappeared from public life; last I heard, he was “promoted” out of the SCLC. And the King family was publicly chastised in the press for his tacky mistake.
So you can fight back and be successful. But no one person did it: it was the movement as a whole. The same sort of collective decisions (read, “democracy”) will need to be made by the blogging community.
Rebecca’s Pocket provides a helpful set of guidelines for ethical blogging. Drawing heavily on journalistic ethics, Rebecca argues for full disclosure of conflicts of interest and questionable sources. All well and good.
It’s her fourth item that makes me uncomfortable: “Write each entry as if it could not be changed: add to, but do not rewrite, delete, any entry.” Rules of thumb are helpful as just that: rules of thumb. Otherwise, you are venturing into the realm of deonotological, or duty-based, ethics. The problem with deontology is that it’s too rigid to survive in the real world, where things have a nasty habit of not doing as they’re told. Weblogs–by definition–constantly change. Why should individual entries be any different? The case needs to be made.
Rebecca’s approach itself is quite open to real world ambiguity: she is not a hard ass about her proposed guidelines. My concern is that someone else will be. Rebecca’s list is excellent, but any move to make blogs more journalism-like gives me the heeby-jeebies. Facts are great if you’ve got them. But I’m not personally interested in collecting either troll dolls or facts. What will the blogosphere do when the “fact police” start knocking on our doors, demanding fact checkers for our blogs? Web publishing is a different medium than print publishing. It should have a different ethic of attribution too.
Serving blog or mammon?
The Market™ is the amorphous keystone of the currently ascendent global worldview. It sees all, it moves all, it rewards and punishes all. You know what it is, but you can’t nail it down. How will The Market’s™ ideology of globalization-from-above go at gaining control of the blogosphere? Charles Murtaugh provides some clues.
A Yale alum, Murtaugh wonders about labor strife at his alma mater. He links to Corey Robin’s thoughts on the matter:
A year later, graduate students went on strike. I did, too — reluctantly. But on the picket line, something happened to me. As we marched around the freshman quad, an undergraduate yelled out his dorm window, “Get back to work.” For the first time in my life, I felt like a maid. And suddenly I realized that this was how other workers at Yale — in the dining halls, the labs, the offices — routinely felt… Where do they [students] learn such imperial disregard, talking to teachers — and dishwashers and janitors — as if they were personal servants?
With another link, Murtaugh notes that another Yale alum found the premises much cleaner when “the help” was on strike and students took it upon themselves to clean. Murtaugh summarizes his fellow alum’s ironic elitism: “Stupid fuckin’ working class, who needs ’em?” If Yale students took to cleaning as an act of solidarity with striking workers, the irony piles up still more.
Any “takeover” of the blogosphere will be subtle and gradual. The change will come first from individual bloggers’ practices and attitutudes. If there’s a critical mass of like-minded commodified bloggers, “peer pressure” alone could be enough to force the change. Hyped invasions like Dr. Pepper’s are just diversionary tactics.
Global commons or global agora?
Two possible metaphors for the burgeoning blogosphere are “the commons” and “the agora.” If it’s “the commons,” our problems will be along the line of what Jedediah Purdy and others have characterized as the tragedy of the commons. Any New England commons (before they became today’s quaint parks) were public land, available for any purpose whatsoever. Since anyone can use the commons to graze their cattle and provide wood for their stoves, everyone is tempted to take more from the commons than they really need, out of fear that someone else might be taking more than their fair share. Once people start pre-emptively hoarding the resources of the commons, a self-fulfilling prophecy comes into play. Indeed, the commons’ resources are shrinking, and the rush to get yours only accelerates the depletion.
If it’s the agora, we’re dealing with more of a public or farmer’s market. For the ancient Greeks, the agora was where you went to shop, gossip, preach, recreate, and politic. One activity can easily morph into another; in fact, it may be hard to divide them up into neat categories. The key problems for the agora are conflicts between commercial and non-commercial activities and setting appropriate limits to the agora. Which is more important: skateboarding or relaxing lunches for executives? What if the merchants start selling their wares inside the temple court? What if the noise is keeping me up at night?
To get find out which metaphor is more appropriate, bloggers will have to come up with answers to the following questions: Is the blogosphere a place where you can set up shop? What kind of a shop? Can you set up a kiosk? Can you build a superstore? Are you allowed to collect money from a friend? Do you need to seek prior approval? From who? Who enforces these decisions?
It’s been said that where there’s no conflict there’s no interest. There is no pure altruism this side of God, and there needn’t be. The only reason for positing pure altruism is so you can either (a) beat yourself up for not quite getting there or (b) beat someone else up for not quite getting there. Unless someone’s claiming pure altruism on their own behalf, I can’t see how either “beating up” critique is helpful.
Likewise, there is no pure authenticity. Authenticity can easily be manufactured, leaving us with few desirable alternatives. All good bloggers are flaneurs, enjoying the internet equivalent of “people watching” as we stroll about town. Any observations we make about who is real and who is posing are entirely our own.
Chutney,
I’ve picked up on this up as well–crudely at
aheapofcrap.blogspot.com.
Similar lines as the above—though nothing nearly as considered or sophisticated as what you have written.
then another unfinished go at philosophy.com(pings still aren’t working)
You have put your finger on what troubled me about Rebecca’s rules but never addressed–the one that we don’t change the post. I revise mine often — and I’m perfectly comfortable with it. Its a different form of writing to print and journalism and thats where I get stuck.
Aside from the spelling mistakes, typos, and grammatical mistakes, I also like to go back and tweak sentence structure. Occasionally, I’ll reconfigure paragraphs, add sentences, etc. For me, it’s all about honoring the process of writing. And in the end, I think that makes us all better writers.
I agree the strict parallel with existing journalism is damaging to what weblogs could be. It’s fine to rework old entries for to hone one’s craft, but consider that weblog entries aren’t necessarily ephemeral. I’ve found that readers have some to some of my posts through search engines and are looking for reference information. In that situation, isn’t my responsibility to keep the post updated? And in that case isn’t a note that the post was updated an indication to readers that I take the responsibility they conferred upon me seriously?
Likewise, I agree suspicion towards authenticity–in this case, weblogs as a somehow pure sphere of discussion, or electronic town meeting place–is called for. Even if this were so, it’s obvious that the "blogsphere" is completely enclosed by contemporary capitalism, and the forces at the perimeter impinge on the set of all weblogs in many forms: bandwidth constraints, blogging software, etc. But it’s clear that weblog authors can’t simply throw off their physical selves, positions in their societies and economies, etc., when they fire up Movable Type or blogger. If authenticity is identified with immediacy, webloggers are the most mediated of subjects, and their writing therefore some of the least authentic. But this should only matter if you think you can or should pry ontology lose from history, and I don’t think you can–or should.
My $0.02US. I may convert to Euros soon, though.
I’d love to see a MovableType plugin that would add a “this entry last edited on X” line. Why not make it easy?
“…Webloggers are the most mediated of subjects…” Beautiful line.
A tangent, but prying loose ontology from history is the precondition of any Christian theology of the Incarnation. Yet another reason I cashed out that portfolio…
I revise mine often — and I’m perfectly comfortable with it.
Ethics, by definition, concern those things we can do, but which are not in the collective interest of society. Publishing online makes you a participant in the public discourse, which in turn carries ethical responsibilities.
Its a different form of writing to print and journalism and thats where I get stuck.
The responsibilities of publishing material for public consumption know no boundaries of medium or avowed profession or purpose on the part of the publisher.
For me, it’s all about honoring the process of writing.
How about honoring your readers, and the potential consequences of your writing for them?
I’d love to see a MovableType plugin that would add a “this entry last edited on X” line.
Even better, a plugin that retained a complete version history for each entry would solve the problem nicely.
Ethics, by definition, concern those things we can do, but which are not in the collective interest of society. Publishing online makes you a participant in the public discourse, which in turn carries ethical responsibilities.
This is not my definition of ethics. To my understanding, what you have defined is “morality,” which is a group of mores accepted by one or another public. Ethics is the reflection on morality using lenses like harm vs. wrong or virtue vs. vice. What is accepted morality may or may not be ethical in the end.
Your understanding of ethics seems to be largely Kantian or deontological, which is to say duty-based. This is a perfectly acceptable understanding of what ethics is, but there are several different accepted approaches.
How about honoring your readers, and the potential consequences of your writing for them?
Are these two goals mutually exclusive? All good writing–and thus the process of writing–is about communication. Honoring the process is honoring your readers. I am interested in creating new publics, not in merely perpetuating the publics that are already there. Creating new publics requires, before all else, the responsible exercise of “ethical imagination.” Letting even good lists of “duties” or “rules” call the plays mitigates against that.
This is a perfectly acceptable understanding of what ethics is, but there are several different accepted approaches.
Could you clarify the relevance of these differences to the discussion at hand?
Are these two goals mutually exclusive?
Not at all. But it is a question of, when forced to choose, whose interests you put first. A policy of revising after publication without informing your readers of what changes were made puts the writer’s interests before the reader’s, which does a disservice to the collective discourse.
I’m on a chatty mood today. I’ll write about my methods for revising old entries:
…it is a question of, when forced to choose, whose interests you put first.
I’m still not convinced that I have been forced to choose. I’m still persuaded that honing my craft is in my readers’ interest. And, as an aside, there’s nothing dishonorable about writing a blog in my own interest. We’d be hard pressed to find a blogger who writes solely out of selfless concern for readers. There is no pure altruism.
Could you clarify the relevance of these differences to the discussion at hand?
If we’re going with a rules-based approach then not notifying readers of edits is unethical: it breaks the rules. (In this approach, all wrongs are de facto harms.)
If we’re going with a harm vs. wrong approach, a wrong may occur when you don’t notify about edits. But–unless the edits are deceitful–the blogger who edits posts is causing no harm. If you take the view of “no harm, no foul,” then the blogger hasn’t acted unethically, even though there was a technical wrong. (This approach holds that harms usually require redress while wrongs usually do not. The only clear cases in this approach are when an action is both a harm and a wrong.)
Or you can go with a virtue ethics approach. There are countless lists of virtues, so it helps to begin by asking what the blogger’s own intended virtues are. If the blogger’s virtue is becoming an excellent writer, then there is nothing inherently unethical in making unannounced edits. If the blogger’s virtue is exemplifying something simliar to journalistic ethics, then, yes, making changes is unethical.
And there’s the question of what exactly the reader’s interest is. I don’t buy that the reader is de facto interested in having access to all previous versions of an entry. Why? I am not myself interested in this sort of access at the blogs I read–unless there’s a major correction–and I would hope that my fellow bloggers would not expect something of me that I do not expect of them. (Reciprocity is one of my virtues.) I would suspect any reader who demanded of me a catalog of all versions of all my entries of vice: in this case, pettiness.
But one person’s vice is another’s virtue. What I call pettiness another might call mere propriety or meticulousness. If another blogger called that their virtue and put up an edit catalog, I would be more than happy to support them in that. We can’t expect everyone to name the same virtues and vices as we do. The most we can do is try to make clear what our goals are and work out any conflicts when and if they come up.
But–unless the edits are deceitful–the blogger who edits posts is causing no harm.
My contention is merely that it is the reader, not the writer, who should determine whether an edit causes harm. The writer’s responsibility is to minimize the likelihood of such harm, and adopting a practice of always detailing changes to posts after publication accomplishes that.
interesting discussion. my proposed set of ethics still reflects my best thinking, so I continue to disagree with the practice of revising and deleting entries once they have been posted. however, I never intended that to apply to errors in spelling and grammar–I meant substantial changes. I always correct misspellings and the like on my own site when I find them.
charly z’s method of revision is completely in the spirit of my proposed guidelines–as described, the reader has all the information they might need, and the integrity of the network is completely protected.
one point which I would like to clarify: my proposed ethics are not intended to “make weblogs more journalism-like”. in fact, in my book I argue at length that weblogs are not a new form of journalism, and shouldn’t even aspire to be so–I think we’re stronger (and important and interesting) as something different, and trying to fit us into a pre-existing mold, to my mind, misses the point.
for that reason, in thinking about ethics for weblogging, I discarded the journalistic standard of accuracy and fairness. that’s unrealistic, and not really in the spirit of what we’re doing. the standard I arrived at was transparency, and I derived each of guideline from that principle.
Until the process can be automated, it seems to me like spending a dollar to save a penny. Otherwise, I’d agree that it was a good practice.
Rebecca, you’ve exemplifed a virtue ethics approach, and I applaud that.
Weblogs as Texts
“HT” Gary Sauer-Thompson on the theme of Weblogs and Democracy introduces an important framework-changing observation.
Weblogs as Texts
“HT” Gary Sauer-Thompson on the theme of Weblogs and Democracy introduces an important framework-changing observation.