John W. Jordan’s article “A Virtual Death and A Real Dilemma” (published in Spring 2005, Southern Communication Journal) addresses how identity, community and trust are constructed through rhetorical means within online communities. He looks specifically at a case in the (relatively) early years of the blogosphere (2001)–that of Kaycee Nicole Swenson–a young woman who chronicled her struggles with cancer in a blog, and who then died. This case is infamous as one of the most elaborate “online hoaxes” ever to play out, and touted by the media and cynics alike as evidence that online spaces for communication are not “safe” by virtual of their immateriality. That without the material markers of RL, the question of identity and truth must always be approached with healthy cynicism. That to become part of an online community, and to consider your relationships and emotional investments in its participants as “real” is to be hopelessly naive, even idiotic.
Jordan’s rhetorical approach to the event and its aftermath uncovers a much more complex discourse about the nature of “trust” and identity in online spaces emerging in the blog posts and comments that followed the revelation. This was a discourse that at once articulated and moved beyond the polarized positioning of the “blogosphere” as an intrinsically “safe” or “unsafe” location, and identity as “authentic” or “fake.”
Dialogic tensions between self/other and persona/community drive online community interactions and establish the trust that binds members together. They also reveal the extent of the dilemma faced by community members when they suspect one of their own of being a hoaxer. If their suspicions are confirmed, they face the potential loss of not just an individual community member, but of the foundation of the community itself. If identity is dialogic, then a hoax implicates all community members, even if only marginally, as it was their mutual acceptance of the fraudulent persona that allowed the hoax to succeed (205).
Jordan’s methodology is useful for thinking about the rhetorical practices that define specific online communities (whether academics, teens, mothers, educators, learners etc) and contributes to a new research trajectory that asks that we look not at “Computer Mediated Communication” as a whole, or even “blogs” and algorithmic measurements of “social network rankings” in monolithic and reductive terms, but instead direct attention also to communities of practice, and specifically the rhetorical strategies through which communities/identities emerge. (note–the article is appearing in a special issue of SCJ that calls for new interdisciplinary trajectories in computer-mediated communication research, which, it argues, has too long been dominated by monolithic and systemic approaches to CMC).
The issue of trust is of specific interest to me here, because in the mommyblogosphere of late there has been much discussion of the “dark side” of blogging, and specifically the way in which the community’s petty hierarchies and competitive forces are casting a shadow over the whole enterprise for many. Trust has been violated. Feelings have been hurt. When the issues of technorati-rankings and “blogging for pay” come into the picture, the way in which we look at how the community works and sustains itself becomes much more complicated. For instance–when does networking/commenting become viewed as an overtly “self-serving” venture?
My own thoughts about gender and blogging of late have been largely positive (see post above)–I have dwelled on the communal, productive aspect of blogging, and how these texts can be viewed as an alternative counter-discourse to the master narratives of “parenting” “motherhood” and gender–a feminist, transformative discourse; “mommyblogging as a radical act“. And I stand by this overarching thesis, but I do not want to simplistically contribute to the “celebratory” rhetoric surrounding blogging and gender. The profound ambivalence articulate by many MBs of late points precisely to how much identity is implicated, and dialogically constructed through the community.
And here I confront my own related ethical dilemma–do I link to these posts here as “evidence” in my academic blog, and risk undermining the trust I have established as a “mommyblogger?” it would make my points more compelling. As a literary scholar I freely quote and attribute “texts” written by individuals, but as a blogger within a community, to treat blog posts from that network as mere evidentiary “texts” makes me less comfortable. This stems from my positioning as both a researcher (and observer) and an active participant of the community I am discussing. Do I want to turn my cohorts into objects for critical investigation? Is this a violation of trust?
