Negotiating Empathic Communication

Abstract

The popularity of personal blogs has instigated a debate on how to define the type of communication taking place between the authors and readers of these blogs. Can it be considered as a dialogic form of communication, or should it rather be characterized as a form of communication with more self-centered aims and potentially commodifying implications? This article analyzes the case of top-ranked personal blogs written by young Swedish women in the year 2009. The popularity and commercial aspects of these blogs make them an interesting case through which to explore a presumed shift from what will be termed “empathic” to “phatic” communication in personal blogs. The article analyzes comments to postings in the blogs and ways in which the bloggers handle these comments and, using the theory of emotion work (Hochschild 1979, 2003), shows how young female top-bloggers negotiate between different communicative forms and purposes in their interaction with readers. In conclusion, the article argues that this communication should be seen as a form of dialogue confirming, but also re-constructing shared values and relations between young female bloggers and their readers.

Keywords:

• personal blogs
• phatic communication
• emotion work
• gender
• Sweden

Notes

1. Blogging software gives bloggers the possibility of adding links to other blogs and web pages and be linked to by others. Most blogging software also enables comments from readers, which appear beneath blog postings or through clicking on a separate link. Bloggers control over comments in the blog varies, such as allowing others to read, link to, and comment postings. Some blogging software also allows the editing of comments.

2. Following Morrison (2010, p. 1) “mommy blogs” consist of everyday experiences written and published online primarily by women “for whom parenthood is a key identity component.”

3. At the time of the study, five blogged professionally as columnists for web-based magazines and TV, and twelve made part of their income through advertisements.

4. An analysis of images and videos posted in the blogs has not been possible within the limits of this article. An inclusion of these elements would, however, add a valuable dimension to a future analysis of emotion work in personal blogs.

5. Herring and Paolillio (2006) argue that many of the presumed gender effects concerning language use in blogs are actually genre effects. Therefore, links and comments were compared across genre or type of blog, but this analysis showed no significant differences.

6. Number of visits per ip-address and hour during the last week reported by bloggportalen.se. These numbers do not account for the fact that the same visitor might be counted several times.

7. Categorization in male, female, or anonymous commentators based on names.

8. Quotes have been translated from Swedish to English by the author. Original formatting is kept from blog posts and comments.

9. All bloggers were informed about the purpose of the study and the use of data. In order to protect their anonymity the blogs quoted and used as examples are presented through numbers, letters, and dates of postings. Comments are referred to by date and blog, but the names of the commentators have been removed.