… but I have been busy busy busy.

Objectives:

This research is interested in the role of online writing for the construction of self and exploration of place-identity. The central research question asks, “How do we construct a sense of self and negotiate our understanding of place in the traditionally non-spatial, mediated online world?”. I will address this question through an examination of the genre of personal blogging, by addressing the following objectives:

1. Explore the construction of self on the Internet through an interrogation of the influence of blogging and community (i.e. the awareness of audience) upon the performative subject.
2. Investigate the influence of place upon the awareness of self and subjectivity in relation to blogging and other online experience.
3. Analyse the narratives constructed through online writing, particularly blogging, and the subsequent awareness of self as gained by writer and audience.
4. Investigate the role of ‘place’ in blogging and how it is conceptualised in relation to the narration of both offline embodied and virtual experiences.

For the Research Methods section of my candidacy proposal, can’t I just say “I plan to read some books and pull together an answer based upon my findings”? Why must I go into multiple pages of theory and framework and all the rest?

I spent quite a bit of time earlier this week screaming profanities at my computer and threatening to throw it against a wall because I just didn’t understand how to use EndNote. The seminars at uni on how-to always seem to be booked out long in advance, and I just couldn’t get my head around how to use it. Then a friend helped me to do the most basic thing (i.e. get a style) and voila – suddenly the world makes SO much more sense! Everything is easier – I can merge libraries and dragndrop and all sorts of things. I’ve even just discovered that I can the gazillions of articles I find each day to the EndNote reference, as well as my notes, if they’re typed. AMAZING!

I’m not so sure I’d go as far as to say “I <3 EndNote” yet, but I’m feeling somewhat less animosity towards it than I was earlier in the week. Thank you, Carla.

PS, has anyone checked out Omnisio yet? I don’t really have time at the moment but it looks like it could be interesting, with the ability to leave comments directly on YouTube videos. Unsurprisingly, Omnisio has just been “acquired” by Google – the owners of YouTube – for some $15,000,000. Not bad for a bunch of Aussie geeks, hey?

The best thing I’ve written so far:

Surely ‘place’ is a challenging, if not unusual, concept to investigate in relation to the Internet. The context is non-physical by design, and this is seen as one of its many benefits: boundaries are broken down and space rendered meaningless. But then again, we are also regarded as existing beyond corporeality, online – to an extent, at least. In fact, thinking about what it means to be online has changed significantly in recent years, to the point where it might not even be fair to consider the Internet a non-physical space. The cyberpunks tried, but it seems that we’re indelibly tied to our bodies, and therefore to our (offline) physical surroundings.

Bloggers are an interesting group to consider. For the most part, the subject matter of the blogs I will study deal not with the documentation of online findings (although they do to some degree, for sure) but rather with offline, embodied experiences. This project will question our reification in the online context, not as individuals roaming the Internet free of our fleshy encumbrance, but rather as existing simultaneously in (at least) three different places: as actors behind the computer screen, blogging everyday occurrences both for oneself and for others; as a part of the ongoing, continually written history preserved between interfaces, perpetuating online forever as a memory; and as a character in the story of one’s own life, consumed by a somewhat imaginary audience on the other side of the screen.

And is that a concern, or what? But this is the tone I like to write with… so why am I struggling so much?

90% doubt, 10% lack of preparation. This sucks.

I started typing out a rather emo and frustrated post about my research objectives earlier today, and then abandoned it as I decided it would probably be a more fruitful use of my time to do some reading about research methods, rather than bitch about my inability as a researcher. Anyway, out of the blue, I seem to have come up with four objectives that I actually quite like, and which actually sound somewhat-sortof-pseudo intelligent. Sort of. Number three is probably superfluous but I’m waiting to discuss it w/ supervisor before I give it the boot. So:

1.    Explore the usefulness of blogging – specifically, the narration of one’s everyday life and the construction of the self as a character or personality – in the adoption of a sense of self, and assess the significance of this narrative being available for public consumption.
2.    Promote the idea that identity is inherently tied to place, and that narrative is an essential way of negotiating the self in a virtual setting as it enables the “mapping” of one’s individuality and experience.
3.    Consider the role that the relationship between geographical space and cyberspace  (and the manner in which they intersect on the Internet to contribute to “place”) plays in the construction of self.
4.    Illustrate the negotiation of place as the intersection of space and ideology in a non-physical manner (i.e., how we as human beings are coming to understand ourselves and our place in the world given that we cannot rely upon our corporeal navigation of landscapes or the physical opposition of self to other objects and people).

How does that look? Maybe with those things in mind I can take the whip and crack it over the widely-spreading behind of my Background section (which, in all honesty, is a pile of loosely related information trying its hardest to come across as a coherent piece of academic writing, but failing dismally).

1. I had a week off work to catch up on my Candidacy Application. “A week” in the world of someone who only works Tuesday & Thursday mornings really means 12 days. Guess what I did? Returned two books to the library, chucked a hissy fit at the stupid effing photocopiers in the Robertson Library (there’s a reason I haven’t done a scrap of copying this year – and that’s saying something seeing as I had a $50 a week copying habit during my Honours year!), opened EndNote once (and promptly left it open for a week), watched at least three cooking shows a day, faffed about online pretending to be researching (because clicking ‘refresh’ in running forums counts as research, right?), watched seven movies (a record in one week for me, I think), and generally slothed around doing sweet fuck all. As a result, I now have more work to do than I can point the proverbial stick at (which, I’m fairly sure, is more of a cattle prong than a stick at this stage).

2. My draft candidacy application is due tomorrow night. I’m waging a war against my objectives (I don’t know! I don’t give a crap!). I haven’t done any reading on research methods yet, despite leaving myself a reminder note every single day for about the past two months. And does my research bear any significance? Sometimes I’m not so sure. I’ve spent an awful lot of time over the past week wondering why the hell I’m writing about blogging when it’s nothing new anymore. But it’s certainly still relevant, and I’m not writing about blogging so much as I’m writing about the significance of blogging upon the construction of self – the storytelling elements, the way that keeping a blog helps to clear out one’s headspace, solidify one’s opinions, that kind of thing. Blogging is obviously relevent because, well, I have three that I regularly update (although not as regularly as I should). It’s just hard to stay focused when I’m reading articles from 2002 talking about blogging… I mean, you wouldn’t go writing a paper about the relevence of ICQ these days, would you? Or maybe people still use that, too.

3. At the time of beginning writing this, I had a conference abstract due on Friday. There has since been a general extension granted until August 15th – thank Christ.

4. I’ve been asked to present a lunchtime seminar at work (i.e. at the university I work at, not the university I study at) which is exciting because it will be a fantastic opportunity to showcase my research to a group of people who have a lot more experience than me, and many of whom have been researching for longer than I’ve been walking this Earth! At the same time it’s terrifying because it will be a fantastic opportunity to showcase my research to a group of people who have a lot more experience than me, and many of whom have been researching for longer than I’ve been walking this Earth! In all seriousness, though, I initially said no. I work in the Law School – and what do lawyers know about the Internet? The chair of the seminar series has been somewhat of a mentor to me over the past year with preparing for my PhD, so she obviously thinks I’m capable. It’s just a bit scary because I’m the accounts girl – I’m not an academic. I’m a member of the admin staff. These people are lecturers, not people just learning to research. The fact that they’re not going to be familiar with my subject matter should be interesting, because I’ll have to convert everything into “layman’s terms” (granted they’re all very well educated laymen!), but that same ignorance could offer a great chance for some feedback from a perspective that I just don’t have.

5. I really am a very, very, very, very long way behind. I haven’t done anywhere near enough reading!

6. I bailed out on all bar one of the seminars and training classes I’d signed up to do last semester. I just need to get my arse into gear and do them! This became painfully evident after I almost threw my poor Computey through a window last night in frustration at not knowing how to use EndNote (I swear it’s not that hard!).

So there.

What is the role of blogging–a way of reconciling experience in the form of narrative–in the construction of self and the understanding of place?

In other news, I’m feeling really guilty for not having emailed my supervisor any work. But I am getting somewhere!!

The question I just posted. Is it good enough?

Is blogging a way of reconciling experience in the form of narrative as a means of constructing self and understanding place?

It has my three main themes: narrative, self, and place. It refers to the central focus: blogging. It kind of refers to my major discussion point: that blogging is a way of documenting experience and keeping a record of past positioning and opinion in order to have something to look back on in the future, and that the blog itself operates as a space in which one can thrash out and work through the issues buzzing around in ones mind.

The wording needs a little tweaking: it’s too … wordy. But I’ll get there.

How are bloggers using narrative as a means of exploring notions of self and the construction of identity?

How does writing for narrative storytelling online contribute to the construction of self and the exploration of place amongst bloggers?

Do bloggers use storytelling and narrative as a means of constructing self and reconciling with a particular identity?

How does the desire to narrate one’s life story influence the writing of bloggers?

Is it fair to say that bloggers write (i.e., employ narrative storytelling) as a means of reconciling identity and constructing self?

Does blogging influence the construction of self and an awareness of place through the employment of narrative as a means of connecting with an audience?

Is blogging a way of reconciling experience in the form of narrative as a means of constructing self and understanding place?

(For those playing at home: I like the last one best. But – I’m still not sure.)

I’m in the process of overcoming major writers block (hah – I originally had “major” in italics, there, but decided that italics just aren’t enough to describe just how far entrenched in the world of writers block that I really was!), and I’ve just realised something.

I thought I knew nothing about this. I thought I hadn’t done enough reading (and let’s face it – I haven’t), and I thought that I couldn’t write because I just haven’t put enough effort into research. But that’s not the case. I couldn’t write because I was approaching it from all the wrong angles. I was trying to write about blogging from an objective perspective, which is really difficult because I am a blogger, and I’ve been a blogger for such a long time that I really can’t divorce myself from this and look at it through impartial eyes. I am a blogger who is writing a PhD on blogging because it’s what she knows and relates to and lives through every day. I live through the things that I write about, and I write about the situations I live through.

Another thing I have discovered in the past few hours is that I have actually gained an immense amount of knowledge over the past few months, and yet I’m still just a tiny little person all rugged up in thermals, holding an icepick, on the tip of the biggest mofo-ing iceberg you’ve ever seen. And there’s a sharp drop down to the icy waters below. And there’s no harness. And there are man eating polar bears on top of the iceberg. And Megatron is buried, frozen, deep within the depths of the iceberg, and he wants me for dinner (once he thaws).

And that, my friends, is why it’s so challenging to sit down and write.