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Jennifer HewerdineJennifer M. Hewerdine recently earned her Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University - Carbondale. She currently works for the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee. Her research interests include multi- and eco-literacies, collaboration, and the development of ethos. Contents |
Realized Public AudienceOne of the often discussed elements of blog writing is the public and “real” audience for which blogging allows. The potential audience for a blog is wider than for traditional class writing assignments. Researchers unanimously agree that the ability for anyone to publish to the web and respond to the writings of others creates a more democratic publishing system that can lead to input and response from a limitless audience (Tryon, 2006; Wei, 2010; Peterson, 2008; Richtel, 2012; Clark 34; Glogoff, 2010 Koehler, 2005; Davies 2007; Lowe and Williams, 2004). In places such as blogs, students are able to publish their work for others to see, validating the writing by providing students with a public platform on which they can present their opinions, interests, and ideas. Students’ writing becomes validated because others outside of the classroom, not just those who are required to read it as a peer or teacher, choose to read and respond to their writing. Several of my students discussed the potential and sometimes real public audience provided by blogging. For example, one student immediately made a connection between the typical audience in a classroom and the extended audience for which blogs allow, commenting that the blog is an “easy and different way of sharing information.” Yet another student, a self-identified politically conservative student who felt his ideas greatly differed from peers, said he consciously kept his blog public because he wanted other people to read what he had to say. A third, “Jake,” an African-American first-generation college student with self-diagnosed writing anxiety, said that the blog allowed him “freedom of speech” and to put his thoughts “out” for others to read. Having others read and comment on his writing was motivating for him as a writer because of the possibility for a large audience. These three examples speak to students’ desire to be heard beyond the walls of the classroom. According to Jason Tougaw, a teacher who incorporates blogs into classroom instruction, students’ use of blogs assisted them in recognizing voice by encouraging conversation and engagement with the texts and ideas of others in the course (Tougaw, 2009). Though understanding social engagement was not a goal of this study, six students stated during interviews that they found the social aspects, including their ability to share information publicly, a motivating factor when writing. Openly published blogs allow anyone with Internet access to read and open an opportunity for social discourse; in addition, the audience may be more socially diverse (Peterson, 2008; Wei, 2010; McGinnis, Goodstein-Stolzenberg and Saliani, 2007; Davies and Merchant 168). Students face a rhetorical situation that forces them to connect to others inside and outside of the classroom, causing them to consider the many potential audiences and address the diverse reactions from their imagined audience (Peterson, 2008). The public/private back-and-forth that demands social feedback and private reflection may offer students the best conditions for brainstorming workable ideas. In an article in the New Yorker, Jonah Lehrer discusses optimal brainstorming situations. Psychologists found that individuals who are offered criticism for their ideas came up with more ideas both in groups and when alone, and those ideas were often more creative than non-critical group brainstorming sessions (Lehrer, 2013). Lehrer states that research has shown “that exposure to unfamiliar perspectives can foster creativity” (n.p.). Because blogs are open to such a wide audience, they expose students to perspectives that can vary significantly. Though the teacher and a student’s peers may be able to provide perspectives that differ from the author’s, those perspectives may be predictable once the students and teacher become familiar with one another. The often constructive feedback from all sources as well as the reflection that the suggestions may prompt can be particularly helpful during the invention stage of writing because it allows for more critical thinking about the topic, sources, and preconceived ideas. Before continuing to forward ideas that they may not have thought through, students are able to receive feedback that may change the course of their research or redirect their attention to overlooked areas, theoretically addressing areas that the audience would otherwise question. The ability to receive comments and comment on other blogs allows students to reflect on the opinions of others, potentially causing students to push further into a topic in order to meet audience expectations. These exchanges provide opportunities for increased critical thinking. Students would sometimes arrive to class excited to tell me the number of blog views they received and became excited when they received comments from people outside of the class. While the comments I saw were never in the realm of feedback, those comments nevertheless indicated to students that a very real audience existed beyond the walls of the classroom. Students who are concerned with audience may more accurately conceive of the audience with whom they are communicating than they would with an imagined or instructor audience. One difference between students and expert writers is that expert writers “can better imagine how a reader will respond to a text and can transform or restructure what they have to say” (Bartholomae, 2003). Though the students who are using blogs are not expert writers, they learn to revise and write for their audience when composing in a public space. Students become concerned that potential audience members understand their writing, and they understand these audience members may hold varied beliefs, knowledge, or opinions that differ from the students’ stated knowledge in the blog postings. Students may find their ideas evolve as their understanding of the complexities of an issue deepens. As ideas evolve over time through audience prompting and feedback, students may find revision necessary in order to be understood. In addition to students’ concern for audience understanding, having a public audience offers challenges to text ownership. One of my students had at least two students from other instructors’ courses copy work from her blog. The class was made aware of the situation, though I did not disclose which student’s work was copied. When interviewed at the end of the semester, students discussed the invisible public audience they had not anticipated when they began using the blog. For the students, this made their writing more like professional writing in that it was seen outside of the classroom and viewed as worthy of copying. Nevertheless, there was a mixture of pride and anger about the situation: pride that their work was seen as valuable, and anger at the thought of someone taking what they had worked to accomplish. Further, the department administration sought to have the students take down their blogs to prevent further plagiarism, but the students resisted doing so, stating that they had a right to make themselves heard and their writing public. The plagiarism incident had consequences beyond the students’ understanding of plagiarism. If they had not already, students realized that others were reading their writing. As a result of the plagiarism, two students chose to post warnings to potential “plagiarizers” on their blog (see Figure 3).
Even those whose work was not plagiarized said they felt their writing was less contrived and no longer solely composed for the purpose of fulfilling class requirements. Clark (2010) says that when students write in digital platforms, they consider “themselves as emerging authors” (p. 29). As emerging authors publishing in public spaces, students begin to learn more about their own authority and responsibilities as a writer. They seem to realize that any information they wanted to get to a reader requires them to clearly word and carefully place the text within the piece of writing on the blog. Within my courses, the students recognized that the blog gave them presence in a digital space and that they controlled the perception of that presence through their words and the images they used. |
