Danah Boyd at TED Confrence

Boyd talks about trying to understand Blogs and Bloggers. In a section of her paper she talks about limited representation of a those who are non-English speakers and those who are of Color and those who live in rural parts and those who live in non-Western civilizations. To me this is very important in trying to understand blogs and blogging as a medium because it leaves a big gap in  expression and content that is not represented. She also talks about blogging as a mode of communication and how this form of communication is left completely up to the blogger. I think that this is important culturally speaking because it gives an understanding into how people view freedom based on what might be socially accepted in their society.

“Using a combination of snowballing, public advertisements on Craigslist and cold emails to random bloggers, I chose sixteen bloggers who represented many of the diverse practices I observed and heard about during my informal discussions and daily blog surfing. I interviewed each for an extended period in a formal, recorded setting. Of the sixteen subjects chosen, eight identified as male, six as female and two as transgendered. Their ages ranged from 19-57 with a mean of 29.4. All lived in major metropolitan areas, with nine located on the west coast of the United States, four on the east coast and three around London. All but one blogged in English. Twelve identified as Caucasian, three as Asian-American and one as Latino. Although teenagers blog in droves, I did not formally interview any teens due to external limitations. The lack of representation of rural regions, non-English speakers, people of color and non-Western cultures limits my understanding of the full breadth of practices, but this paper is not trying to articulate all blogging practices. The diversity of practices found in my relatively homogenous subject pool still shows a variety of experiences and attitudes.”