Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Blogging has become a legitimate platform for individuals to shape conversations about the issues that affect them. This personal medium for self-expression has also become a channel for organizations to gain publicity. The question of a professional influence in a personal space raises questions about blogger decision-making and ethics in representing corporate interests. This study reveals that bloggers consider their sites as extensions of themselves, and that their consideration of reader and corporate interests evolves.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: How do weblogs and possibilities for different relationships create social affiliations? The Baghdad Blogger wrote about life in Baghdad as war loomed. The authentication of Salam Pax, his pseudonym, during the preparation for the invasion of Iraq first occurred in the blogosphere. Fellow bloggers debated whether he was “real” or a “hoax.” Supporters made their case. Later, those bloggers vouched for him when journalists investigated his credibility as a source during the invasion. For communications scholars, a case study of Salam’s authentication reveals the importance of the blog as a venue for mediated and interpersonal social interaction, as well as parasocial interaction. This paper explores through a qualitative analysis the creation of social affiliation through these relationships as Salam’s “text” was recontextualized from a blog to other media. Moreover, the popularization of Salam Pax illustrates how relationships between populations have been altered by the internet in wartime.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Workbloggers – employees who write online diaries about their work -- are often simultaneously productive workers and savage critics of the corporate cultures in which they toil. Blogging about one's work life is a way of maintaining an emotional and intellectual distance between one's private and work selves, and new corporate management theories and their resultant jargon provide rich material for writers of a satirical bent.
The collision of personal, political, and corporate space resulting from the phenomenon of workblogging has led to several high profile “fired blogger” cases and negative publicity that have sent human resources and management professionals scrambling for solutions. Companies have attempted to stifle workblogging by increasing surveillance, developing blogging policies that discourage the practice, but this strategy conflicts ideologically with corporate cultures based on self-management and informal social exchange.
Several companies are experimenting with an alternate strategy -- “corporate blogging” – creating policies that embrace employee bloggers, encouraging them to reveal their identities and blog openly about work. However, anonymous bloggers have refused to be co-opted, responding with renewed commitment to their practice, maintaining a global critical dialogue about the labor process that transcends individualized resistance and contains the potential for an organized and vocal movement.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to explore the intertextuality within story of the iPhone being framed as the “Jesus phone” and the relationship between religious language, imagery, and technology. The iPhone as the Jesus phone highlights an interesting interaction between technology fans, news media and corporate advertising. It also demonstrates how different groups may interact and appropriate the language and imagery of another to communicate very different meanings and intentions. Intertextuality serves as a valuable framework to specifically unpack how religion was employed as a helpmate to sell technology and reflect on how religious language and imagery may be utilized to communicate both positive and negative aspects of a technology.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Most studies of political blogging have focused exclusively on the so-called “A-list” political blogs. While these studies have provided important insights into the content of A-list political blogs (Adamic and Glance, 2005), how A-list political blogs influence media coverage (Drezner and Farrell, 2004) and who A-list political bloggers are (McKenna and Pole, 2004), they have largely ignored the thousands of less read political blogs that are written by average citizens every day. As a result, relatively little is known about political blogging “by the rest of us” (Schiano et al., 2004). Perhaps most surprising in this regard is the fact that while there has been much debate over whether political blogging is a form of political participation (McKenna and Pole, 2004), there has been no systematic research into how ordinary people are using blogs as a form of political expression. In this paper, I will address this oversight by using a computer assisted, quantitative content analysis of 25 randomly selected, non-A-list political blogs over the six month period from July to November 2004 in order to determine the relationship between mainstream media coverage and political blog discussion. The results of this study will help shed light on whether the political blogosphere is a merely an “echo chamber” for the messages of political elites as reported in the mainstream media.