Research blogging do’s and don’ts

I’ve been thinking a bit what to publish about my research on my weblog, and went to search for other examples of research blogs to give me some guidelines.

I stumbled upon this website by Jill Walker who has written a valuable paper on blog usage and research together with Torill Mortensen. A very good read for anyone who is in doubt on what to blog and what not to. The following quote presents an interesting view:

“Blogs exist right on this border between what’s private and what’s public, and often we see that they disappear deep into the private sphere and reveal far too much information about the writer. When a blog is good, it contains a tension between the two spheres…”

The paper by Walker and Mortensen can be downloaded from the website, or directly from here: Jill Walker and Torill Mortensen, Blogging Thoughts: Personal Publication as an Online Research Tool (February 2002, PDF).

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About Thinspiration and Pro-Ana

With the masterclass we temporarily used a wordpress.com account before transferring it to our own server. But this blog turns out to be a very good test for the worrying interest in the subject of Thinspiration and Pro-Ana. Just look at the blog statistics from September 26th 2006 below from mastersofmedia.wordpress.com after a blogpost about the subject.

Top Posts
Title / Views
Thinspiration / 225
We’ve moved!!! / 2
Locative Media / 1

Search Engine Terms
Search / Views
thinspiration / 61
pro ana / 40
pro-ana / 20
pro ana site / 15
t / 7
pro-ana op hart van nederland / 5
pro ana website / 4
pro anorexia / 4
pro ana superkuiken / 3
pro-ana site / 3

This is definitely worrying, because we can’t let a movement like this go by without anticipating on it. And this raises the question how to anticipate on groups that support psychological symptoms, or as others might say ‘a different normal’, and the question if they should be allowed. Because is banning it the way? Probably not, because subjects that go underground are even harder to check and anticipate on.

What could work is to let professional people integrate in these websites and provide different insights, to have a balanced view on the subject and not simply glorification. To show the downsides of the anorexia and inform them on the subject. I can only stress the importance of initiatives like Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, to make especially women feel good about themselves.

If you’re looking for more information on the subject check out fellow New Media master student Jeffrey van Schie’s blog about his research on pro-ana and thinspiration.