Category: Blogging

Blog is Again Online

After having endless errors with WordPress over the past week and a half, I finally backed up the database, cleared the domain of everything, and reinstalled the system, posts, images, and plug-ins. Along the way, working with the fine support staff at Pair Networks, I now have a WordPress install that works better than ever. I am actually able to install plug-ins and upload files through the Dashboard, which is something that never quite worked right before. I expect to continue tweaking the install, including adding (and removing) some plug-ins that I have wanted to use for some time, along with a new template that I have had my eye on that I will install and customize in the next several days.

True, spending all the hours I have done over the past 2 weeks has meant that I have not gotten as much of my research done as I would have liked, but Silence and Voice is not simply a blog, but rather my online space where I discuss and share aspects of my research. Silencing me here effectively silences my work.

Internet Research 12.0 (2011) Call for Papers

Thrilled to see that the AoIR (Association of Internet Researchers) call for papers for the  Internet Research 12 Conference IR12 is now available on the conference website. I liveblogged and wrote obsessively about the current year’s conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, and took many ideas away with me that are now beginning to influence my own research.

Did I see that the focus this coming year will be Performance and Participation, with a smattering of issues around identity (the interest of mine that is becoming all-consuming)? Take a look at the focus this year in the call for papers:

To this end, we call for papers, panel and pre-conference workshop proposals from any discipline, methodology, community or a combination of them that address the conference themes, including, but not limited to, papers that intersect and/or interconnect with the following:

  • Creative performances and digital arts
  • Participatory culture and participatory design
  • Critical performance and political participation
  • Identity performance
  • Exclusion from participation
  • Economic performance of Internet-related industries
  • Game performance
  • Performance expectations (as workers, citizens, etc.)
  • Ritual performances and communal participation

This increasingly looks to be a place for my work, as all of it involves Internet Research, focuses on identity formation and development, and is about as interdisciplinary as the social sciences themselves. Hope to attend and present my work for more engaged and constructive peer feedback.

Unconscious Use of Autoethnography via Blogging

I received a direct email reply to my research design work, and there was an interesting question regarding a shift that was identified in my work from a focus on autoethnography (a/e) toward qualitative interviewing.

I do want to focus on autoethnography. However, I think more people are using this method (or some form of this method) in their doctoral / research blog postings than realize it. Some of the people whose work I read are basically doing this without naming it, and I think that for some of them to name it would become more of a legitimacy issue for them than not (my speculation), though in fact that seems to be what they are doing. I am thinking about trying to look at their experiences without trying to explicitly determine if that is what is happening. By focusing on their experiences and seeing what I can learn, I may in the process exploring if there is instead some unconscious use of a/e.

I did not remember how I fell asleep. I did not wake up at night. I just shut off for six hours. I slept! I slept! In my situation, it was very surprising, since Ambien No Prescription sleeping pills are not almost effective for me.

I wonder if autoethnography is used unconsciously quite often?