the personal sphere of expression: exploration of iranian weblogs and comments

8/8/2019 The Personal Sphere of Expression: Exploration of Iranian Weblogs and Comments

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The Personal Sphere of Expression:Exploration of Iranian Weblogs and

Comments

Motahare Akhoondi

IRIB University - Iran

Abstract:

In t his paper I will discuss t he comment s as a feedback of weblog

readers t o blogger of weblog. This art icle will answer t he quest ions

below: what s t he funct ion of Iranian comment s? And which issues

are discussed in comment boxes? Do comment boxes funct ion as an

int imate and personal sphere for self expression and present at ion

or not ?

All search engines can search all t ext s t hat are available for every

one, but t here are many cont ents that search engine cant find like

t he topics and discussions which are in the comment boxes. The

same podcast s cant be searchable anyway.

Comment boxes, are hidden in most of Persian weblog services.As a result , comments of weblogs are t he part t hat will be shown in

case you click on comment box. So here is one of t he safest places

in blogging and exchanging t he experience and some t opics and

words t hat if used in blog post s, it would be filt ered. Comment s are

t he most common feedback of v iewers.

Key words: Comment , feed back, rit ual communicat ion

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Introduction:

The digit al age arrives wit h a set of big communicat ion challenges

for t radit ional mainst ream media: new relat ions wit h audiences

( Int eract ivit y) , new languages (Mult imedia) and a new grammar

(Hypert ext ) . Jos Luis Orihuela

Weblogs as a personal media can be expanded like broadcast ing

media. It also has the potent ial t o gather personal community f or

each blogger and put t ing comment in other weblogs is basic form t o

make such personal communit y.

Weblogs are popular in part because they enable easy, inexpensive

self-publicat ion of cont ent for a pot ent ially vast audience on the

World Wide Web, while being more flexible and interact ive t han

previous publicat ion formats, print or digit al. (Herring, Scheidt ,

Bonus, & Wright , 20 05 )

Weblog was init ially used t o writ e daily cont ent but gradually it

became specialized and subject -orient ed. Here we t ake a look at

comment s found in memoir weblogs. These are weblogs to which

people enter account s of t heir daily experiment s or personal

observations.

Because most subject s posted in t hese weblogs are ordinary

daily incident s t hey could be viewed as windows which showsocial changes and happenings and show t hem in t he way t hey are

perceived by ordinary people.

Also weblogs could be viewed as sources f rom which an oral hist ory

of a specific cult ure could be compiled, weblogs which are writ t en by

a blogger mirror t he bloggers perspect ive and so are self egot ist ic

weblogs. Unlike specialized religious, musical, polit ical or cult ural

weblogs these individual perspect ive weblogs mirror t he bloggers

personalit y and t hrough which it is possible to gain insight in t o

bloggers concept of his/ her daily life and his or her ident it y.


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Relat ed Work:

There are many researches on weblog realm, but all of t hem focus

on post s, links and blogger. Comment study is a missing part . Gilad

Mishne and Nat alie Glance have worked on comment s and analyses

t he comment s for evaluat ing t he post and weblogs.

And t hey argued comments are missing t ext in blogging and

they found out comments constitute a substantial part of the

blogosphere, account ing for up to 30% of t he volume of weblog

posts t hemselves.In Iran there is no working on comment s. All of t he exist ent studies

are about posts.

Lit erat ure review:

The basic models of communicat ion part icipat e of sender, message

and receiver.

The researchers just explain how the communicational systems

perf orm in media especially in Weblogs. But no research explain how

t he audiences ef fect on blogger wit h just sending t heir feedback in

Comment shape or anot her t ypes like : catch t he blogger online inWeblogs communit y, or keeping t heir online contact via chat t ing, or

sending mail and so on.

Feedback: Weiner (19 48 ) is t he first person who ment ioned feed

back in communicat ion st udies.

He defines it as t he propert y of being able t o adjust fut ure conduct

by past performance. (Brooks et all, 1976:147)

In ot her hand, Feedback is a kind of reflect ion of communicat ional

message that the receiver reflect to the message of sender

intent ionally or not intent ionally. These messages of audience


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let t he sender t o evaluat e his communicat ion sit uat ion wit h his

audience.

Healthy communicat ional syst em use feedback for correct ing

communicat ional system. (Shokrkhah, 2000:80 )

Comment : To pay at t ent ion to t he reasons of t he evidences and

evaluat ion of news or process that broadcast as t his column name

or paper. (Shokrkhah, 2000:44 )

Comment means int erpret at ion, explanat ion but in blogging it

means t he audience can put t heir idea on t he specific box as their

feedback t o post s. (Shamshirgar, 2007)

Some unique feat ures of comment boxes are:

1) Not being searchable therefore can t be filt ered?

2) It is t he place t hat t he feedbacks of t he viewers can easily

be shown.

3) It makes it a private place for viewers.

4) Most of t he import ant discussion between bloggers and viewers

can be made t here.

The same t hing in all t ypes of Weblogs in each posit ion is need of

being comment ed.

Hist ory of Persian blogging:

To underst and how t he Iranian blog sphere looks like, it is necessaryt o review t he blogging hist ory and Iranian blog services. The first

Persian weblog was inaugurated in Sept ember, 2001 by Salman

Jariri.(Wikipedia)

A wave of blogging began by t he t ime a manual of generat ing

weblogs was published in Iran by Hossein Darakhshan. Weblogs

appeared quickly and 100 were generat ed during t he very fi rst

year.


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During the first years the number of weblogs exceeded 10000

t hanks t o Persian Blog services.

Hossein Darakhshan , one of blogging harbingers in his Weblog t it led:

Sardabir-e-khodam writ es about polit ics, culture and himself in

English and Persian. (Wikipedia) history of Iranian blog services and

a study of comment box systems Free Persian language blogging

service provider named PersianBlog began it s work in 20 02.

Because most early Iranian bloggers held polit ical views and biasesblogging became known as a polit ical expression. Aft er 2003 t his

conception gradually changed by introduction of other types of

weblog including video-blogs and phot o-blogs and podcast .t o gain

an insight into Iranian blog services and their comment syst ems a

hist ory of t heir act ivity is given below:

Persianblog1: was t he first Persian weblog service provider which

began it s act ivity in June 20 02 and was the biggest Persian weblog

service provider unt il 2007.

From t hen and as a result of compet it ion wit h ot her providers,

Blogfa has acquired t he first place .In 20 07 Persianblog lost many of

it s subscribers and his domain was hacked.

They have recently included a private commenting icon in their

services.

At the beginning the commenting service of Persian blog was

relat ively secure because it included a coding image icon for

regist ering comment s. It was t hen removed and so t he possibilit y of

receiving spam has since increased.

1- ht t p:/ / persianblog.ir


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Blogsky 2: On April 9th 2003 while many doubts still persisted

regarding the first Iranian blogging service provider, t he second

such provider was inaugurated. It s simple but engaging appearance

t old of a fierce compet itor. (shomaha,2009 )

Bet t er services and higher speeds have drawn many users t o Blogsky

in a way t hat 6000 bloggers registered in a span of 20 days.

Blogsky was hacked in t he same year and many users backed of f . In

2004 and as a result of invasive filt ering of some blogs registered at

Blogsky many users were disappoint ed with t his provider.

Mihanblog3: Mihanblog was t he t hird Persian language weblog

service provider which was inaugurated in November 20 04.

A special feature of t his providers services was that comment ators

could post t heir privat e comments on each post and also it was

possible t o group weblogs. Weblogs provided by Mihanblog are

generally used by bloggers who post jokes, ent ert ainment links and

music downloads links. Some mishaps including delet ion of archives

and ot her glit ches during 20 05 and 20 06 dispersed users.

The provided domain was bought by another group and after

undergoing drastic changes it again entered service providing

business. This t ime around wit h many addit ional services and t rims,

including a personal message inbox possibilit y of post ing t o the

fut ure ,9 comment ing casts and password prot ected post s, eachblog is a users ident ifier and a user can also post comments to one

another and communicat ion is t hus made easier. Many int eract ions

bet ween users which was included in box comment s (such as

greet ings and personal quest ions) were now included in personal

message syst em. Mihanblog current ly holds second posit ion among

Iranian weblog service providers and 500t h posit ion in t he world.

2- htt p:/ / blogsky.com3-ht t p:/ / www.mihanblog.com


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Parsiblog4: Parsiblog was inaugurated in August 2004 and it

provides special feat ures included advanced comment ing syst em

and elect ronic signing of comment s and a syst em for t racking

comment s aft er t hey are post ed and regist rat ion of comment at ors

I.Ps and possibilit y of post ing answers to comments t hrough

direct ors panel. Such facilit ies however were accompanied by bugs

and technical problems and so were not great ly popular.

Blogfa5: it began in December 2004 and because at t he t ime

blogfa was backed it flourished unhindered wit hout facing seriouscompet it ion .In a span of 4 months 300 00 act ive or semi act ive

blogs were registered by it .

Apart f rom incident s which befell t hese blogs the provider was not

seriously harassed and it now holds first position among weblog

service providers. One short coming is it s comment ing service

which is easily fi lled wit h spams. Each weblog could be t argeted

wit h spam engines while being updat ed and t he problem won t be

mit igated even when an image coding icon in cont rived. Increasing

t he rank of t he page in part icular in Google is t he aims of t hese spam

comments. (Azemat i, 20 05 )

Wordpress is a foreign provider which has become popular with

Iranian bloggers. What dist inct t his provider from Iranian providers

is t hat t he comment ary page is not a separate web page and t hus

could be googled or ot herwise searched. Also if a blogger usesst rong language he or she could be barred by webmast er.

The in common part s in t hose ment ioned blog services are: name,

E-Mail, page Address, message and t he opt ion for saving t he

informat ion in comment boxes. There is also a Smily box in near of all

them.

In t he early years of weblogs most interact ions in t he virtual world

were through weblogs, comment ary pages and more import ant ly

emails and chart rooms. In recent years however ot her t ools such as

4 -ht t p:/ / parsiblog.ir5 - htt p:/ / blogfa.com


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feed readers including Google reader, t wit t er and f riend feed have

brought in many more ways of int eract ion and have revolut ionalized

interact ions in t he virt ual world. For example since feed reading

was int roduced in Persian weblogs users could express what t hey

want ed to include in t heir comments through an alt ernat ive rout e

namely by adding not es on share it ems. Comments have become

smaller in t his way and more people would be able to visit t he post ..

It is possible in t wit t er t o express ones feeling in each inst ant using

140 characters and under t he logo:

What are you doing?

Many regular bloggers now communicate with t heir audience t hrough

ot her ways. Part icipant s in weblogs are usually called bloggers or

comment at ors while they are referred to as followers and f riends in

t wit t er and friend feed respect ively. They could off er feedbacks in

each instant and drive a bilat eral discourse in such a direct ion t hat

it becomes a group int eract ion .It s in cont rast t o t he convent ional

comment ary page which was seldom visit ed simultaneously by t he

blogger and t he commentat or.

To avoid get t ing involved wit h t hese new and alt ernat ive tools of

interact ion in t he virt ual world we shall only considered posts posted

during 2007 or earlier .when t hese alt ernat ive t ools were not act ive

yet and weblogs have a dist inct ident it y.

Sampling :

In t he init ial research we have launched an on-line quest ionnaire t o

get a view of comment ing habit s of users. We asked t hose bloggers

who post ed comment s in other bloggers weblogs t o also at t end t he

program .we were able t o ext ract 304 answer sheets eventually.

In t he second phase in order t o put const raint s on t he sample we

only cont act ed memoir weblogs .Because accessing all Persian

memoir weblogs is not feasible we were driven t o use a non-random

sampling.


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Our st at ist ical populat ion included Iranian memoir weblogs which

were inaugurat ed before 2007. We have studied comments of

t hree posts for each Weblog, these t hree being randomly select ed

f rom comment s on t hat weblogs.

30 weblogs were select ed through Purposive samples on dif ferent

weblog service providers or f rom t hose who had personal domains.

Purposive samples comprised of subject s which are select ed on

t he basis of specific charact erist ics .Those subject s which dont

meet the criteria are eliminated from the sample. (wimmer et

al,2005:126)We allocated a quot a of t he sample t o each weblog service provider

t o incorporat e t hem all in our st udy. Lat er we found out t hat most

bloggers who blog t heir memoirs subscribe to Blogfa.

Research result s and Discussion:

The st udy showed that The Ages are bet ween 13 and 60 . 60 %

are male and 40% are female. 26% are married and 73.5% are

single.47 % have just one weblog and 21 .5% have two, 16% have

t hree, and 6% have four, and f rom 5 and more it reduces in owning

t he weblogs. 27% of bloggers updat e t heir weblogs once a week.

In most weblogs t he forum is not used as a peripheral place of

communicat ion (93%). 38% of bloggers post under pseudonyms.

29% of bloggers set t heir comment boxes in a way t hat t hey would

need t he bloggers confirmat ion before t hey are accessible .Anot her

66% dont require a confirmat ion and 5% have barred comment ingin their weblogs.

Comment ing habit s: 13% use diff erent names when post ing

comments. 18% always post comments when surfing through

weblogs. 40% posted comment most of time and 33% only

occasionally considering the feedback, 11% always and 21.5%

usually and 28% occasionally. Considering feedbacks: One

interest ing result is t hat people give feedbacks to ot her persons

feedbacks given through comment s and at t imes a feedback t akes

priorit y over a post and becomes the t arget of next comment s.


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23% of subjects read other peoples comments posted on other

bloggers weblogs. 36 % usually do t hat . 32 % somet imes do t hat .

7% seldom do that and 2% never do that. 4% stated that they

always answer comment s posted on weblogs belonging t o t hird

part ies. 10 % st at ed they usually do t his and 34% st at ed that t hey

sometimes do this the statistics show that people not only read

comment s posted but also st udy feedbacks given t o ot her peoples

posts. This could aff ect t he feedbacks given by t hemselves. Some

stated that they even answer comments posted on weblogs

belonging t o t hird part y bloggers.

Funct ions of comments :

Wit h observing 30 memoir blogs, we found the comment funct ion

below: get t ing feedback, communicat ion in diff erent levels with

diff erent aims including an overture to f riendship or a means to a

deeper friendship or st rengt hening an exist ing relat ionship, sharing

experiences, announcing ones presence or asking permission t o be

present , also ritual relat ionship or advert isement .

Comment boxes are suitable way to communicate and to send

feedbacks. E-mailing may not be easy for bloggers but comment

boxes have facilit at ed web communicat ion on their own account .

Feed back:

A majorit y have said t hat t hey share experiences in comment

boxes.7% stat es t hey always do t his.40% st ated they usually do

t his. 29% said t hey somet imes do t his .16 % said t hey seldom do t hisand 6% said t hey never do t his.

It became apparent t hat another funct ion of comment boxes is t o

increase t he number of visit ors t o a weblog .To t he quest ion that

whether bloggers increase t heir visit ors t hrough this met hod a

majorit y gave a posit ive answer .5% stated that t hey always do that

21.5 stat ed t hat t hey usually do t hat and 28% said t hey somet imes

do t hat .

To t he quest ion t hat I inform ot hers of my weblog being updat ed

through posting comments in comment boxes 22% stated that


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t hey always do that ,35 % said t hey somet imes do t hat .This shows

t hat bloggers use comment ing t o announce t heir weblog is being

updated and increase visit ors feedback in t his way .

Ritual communicat ions :

Somet imes we communicat e not t o share informat ion but just t o

keep a communicat ion going and t o communicat e for it s own sake.

According to James Carrey ritual communication is on the same

level as sharing, part icipat ion, associat ion, fellowship and adheringt o a common belief .

Ritualist ic concept of communicat ion doesnt deal wit h dist ribut ing

a message in t ime or space but t ries t o keep t he societ y in a given

moment . It doesnt int end t o share informat ion but t o represent

existence of a common belief . (Rot henbuhler, 1998) In comment s

which convey greet ing or valedict ion are seen galore. Sent ences

like hello? How are you? at first of comment s and bye and take

care at last of comments are so common. To t he quest ion t hat I

am accust omed to greet ing when post ing comment s. 18% st at ed

t hat t hey always adhere t o f ormalit ies.20% st at ed t hat usually do.

22% said t hey somet imes do. 21% said t hey seldom do and 16%

said t hey never do.

These result s confirm preponderance of rit ual communicat ions in

comment boxes. Somet imes we dont have any part iculate opinion

t o convey and so we just announce our presence with a simple hello or by showing an icon. In such cases we are using rit ual

communication.

Subject s being discussed in comment boxes :

Memoir weblogs are usually about daily event s faced by t he blogger

and t he blogger is t he main subject of t hem.

Comment s in such weblogs are not of a divisive and agit at ing nat ure.

Comment s could be divided into 4 categories on t he basis of t heir


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cont ents. These are:

Individual orient ed comment s, content orient ed comment s,

advert isement s and spam, and expression of personal int erests.

Many comments however are individual oriented and content-

orient ed .These lat t er comment s only express t he comment ators

opinion on t he subject of discussion in t he post .

In exclusively individual-oriented comment s t he subject of comment

is t he individual and is unrelat ed t o t he cont ent of t he post . Because

t he blogger him/ her self is t he subject in most posts in memoirweblogs most comments are simultaneously individual oriented

and cont ent -orient ed apart f rom t hat t here are comments which

express personal int erests of t hose who post t hem as well as t heir

opinions on the ent iret y of t he weblog, including back ground music,

colors, f rame, pictures, java codes, etc. Spams and advert isement

are unwilling comments which are posted t o increase t he visitor t o

a websit e, also t o advert ise a websit e or selling online. (Like movie,

music & CD) These comments are usually among first comments of

a post because most t hese comments are forwarded t o all updated

weblogs subscribed t o a service provider t hrough a smart engine.

Such commonly observable comments are most ly f ound in weblogs

provided by Blogf a.

Clash of ideas could be most ly seen in polit ical weblogs in memoir

weblogs on t he cont rary sustained communicat ion and mut ualsupport could be most ly observed. The reason could be the fact t hat

we are most ly unchallenged when t alking about quot idian.

Are comment boxes a private venue for negotiation in

memoir weblogs?

comment boxes play a great part in sharing experiment s and

sympat hizing and rit ual communicat ion Because bloggers usually

divulge dif ferent angles of t heir lives in post t he audience conceives

of t hose with whom t he blogger deals in his/ her daily life and also


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his/ her habit s and ideas in such a way as perceived by t he blogger

him/ her self. It is not rare that a blogger writ es about most int imat e

mat t ers in his or her weblogs mat t ers which he/ she won` t dare

forward in an actual or official gathering it s t he anonymit y of t he

blogger which encourages him/ her to writ e wit hout inhibit ion and

it has been seen t hat aft er a bloggers cover is busted then he/ she

stops blogging or post ing alt ogether t o t he quest ion whet her you

t hink comment ing webpage is a suit able place for exchanging ideas

1.8% t ot ally confirmed t his and 36 % confirmed t his as a general

but not as an absolut e fact . 23% didnt comment on that quest ionwhile 21% rejected t his not ion and 3% reject ed it t ot ally. Cont rary

t o t hese opinions is t he following: 21 % always delet e comments

when t hey are too int imat e. 20% somet imes delet e and somet imes

keep to int imat e comment s, 21% seldom delet e such comment s

and 15% never delete them. The subject s were asked in anot her

quest ion whether they delet e an insult ing comment 32% always

delete such comment s. 20% usually delete them 16% somet imes

delete t hem, 18% seldom and the remaining 12% never deleted

such comments.

Bloggers usually react t o bot h insult s and int imat e comments in

incorporat e ot her peoples comments in t heir post . Only 2 1.5% and

4.5% st at ed that t hey seldom or never (respect ively) incorporat e

ot her peoples comment s in t heir posts.

Comment funct ion in a blog allows for t he reader t o become a part oft he bloggers script .

As a consequence in memoir weblogs t he discussion in comment s

boxes are about blogger (person) or t he subject of t he post . and

because of t hat many of comment s are personal.

Comment ing, on t he other hand, t akes a bit of t he privacy away

f rom t he aut hor and shares it wit h t he audience, as was shown in

t he case of Jill>s t roll. (Nilsson: 20 06:12 ) But t here are some more

quest iones: what is t he definit ion of private message? Why do t he

authors delet e private message as insult ing message?


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Comment and ident it y: 13 % of bloggers are used t o put t heir

comment s wit h dif ferent names and 61 % of bloggers writ e wit h

t heir nick name but 55 % completely agreed t hat when t hey put

comment t hey are their real ident it y.

As result s showed even near one fort h of bloggers, t hey use t o use

t heir nick name (which is not t heir real name: alias), but when they

put comment s in ot her blogs, t hey do as characterist ics of t heir real

ident it y. They hide themselves (t he real self) behind t he aliases.

On t he quest ion of whether one posts comments under his or her real

name and ident it y or uses pseudonyms 55 % said t hey use t heir realident it y, anot her 36% lauded post ing comments under real ident it y

and no one was found who t ot ally reject ed this.

10% said t hey use pseudonyms when t hey post comment , and 6%

totally agreed that they only used pseudonyms. 42% said their

weblog character is t he same wit h t heir real character and 40%

reit erat ed t his point . Only 7 % rejected and 6% t ot ally rejected t his

idea.

Khalili has worked on Iranian weblogs. She found out t hat : 57% of

bloggers use t he real name in writ ing weblog. This fact can prove

t hat most of t he bloggers dont like the virt ual charact er. (Khalili,

2005:116)

Ot herwise 43% of bloggers writ e wit h nick name, but when t hey put

comment t hey show their real ident it y.

Conclusion:

In t his paper, we gave a categorizat ion of comment s and we have

discussed t hat comment is a common way t o send feedback t o t he

blogger. And comment boxes are safe place for expression but so

private messages can be deleted by blogger. Maybe with these

privat e messages some of t he ext ents of blogger can be shown and

it can t ake the privacy away f rom t he blogger. In fact blogger prefer

delet ing t he comment .


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Acknowledgements: The aut hor wish t o t hank Saeid Reza Ameli,

Mahdi Bakhshaei and Ali Reza Shirazi for many useful discussions

and for t heir assist ance.

REFERENCES

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Weblogs as a bridging

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the personal sphere of expression: exploration of iranian weblogs and comments

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