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The strength of blogging

According to Habermas, language forms the basis of communicating. He uses the so called 'speech act theory' from Austin and Saerle to explain what happens whilst communicating (I'm not going to exlain what it all means, it's simply too much :). With every speech act (e.g. command, ask, declare) we make certain claims:

- the aspect of the rightness that the speaker claims for his action in relation to a normative context (or, indirectly, for these norms themselves);
- the truthfulness that the speaker claims for the expression of subjective experiences to which he has priviliged access;
- the truth that the speaker, with his utterance, claims for a statement. (Habermas, The Theory of communicative action, Volume 1: 307)

This means that while you are communicating to an other person you may reject the things that are said under each of these aspects. If you know that a person makes claims about the truth that you know are not true at all, you move on in the conversation by stating that the other person is not speaking according to the truth. This does not mean that a person also is untruthful at the same time, because the claims that person made about the truth can be based on a lack of the proper information. If the other person deliberately makes claims about the truth that are not factual true, this person is not acting communicatively but strategically. Then this persons intentions are to manipulate the other and also is not acting truthfully.

To be able to judge whether a person acts right, truthful and refers to the truth you need context about a person. Now in face-to-face meetings this can be judged best I think. People are able to pick up the smallest of signals indicating whether a person is being sincere. The way a person smiles, the way s/he shakes your hand, the way the person talks all give signals that add up to our judgement of a person.

But what happens if you're deprived of all those small clues? How are we able to judge a person in mediated communication? Especially through internetcommunication we have problems with this issue. Talking through the phone to eachother still gives some clues through intonation of the voice, it is a direct conversation which means that you get immediate and spontaneous reaction, you can hear someone laugh. Through e-mail, chatchannels and fora you have less clues. People have been aware of that and even used this lack of personal information to create 'unreal' identities.

To have real conversation through the internet, in terms of Habermas, we need context of a person to be able to judge whether we can trust someone. Weblogs are a good startingpoint to be able to get more clues. One can 'follow' a blog over time and judge whether the blogger is consistent over time, knowledgeable, sincere, truthful. You get clues about a certain style of someone just by looking at the interface of the blog. Often there is an 'about-page'. In this way the weblog is a far richer medium than chatting and discussionfora and that makes it a very strong medium for communication on the internet.

It becomes more interesting when people use a blog as a 'communicationhub'. You write in your blog about things you want to write about and allow readers to comment on that. It is interesting to see that other ways of communicating with the blogger are often being offered. Most bloggers offer an e-mail address for instance. Far more interesting is the use of VoIP (e.g. Skype) among bloggers, or adding each other to chatlists and sharing images of webcams. Combining different types of communication makes the possibilities for communicative action stronger.

So the weblog serves as a filter for reaching out to people with shared interests. While initiating contact through a weblog, you can intensify contact through VoIP, webcams and chatting etc. which adds up to a better judgement of the blogger behind the text.

Permalink | TrackBack (by Elmine Wijnia on April 27, 2004 01:31 PM)