So, my group in class decided that we were going to pursue the thought of blogs as narrative and mediums of self-representation.
Rettberg’s book mentions a few different types of creative blogs. Goal oriented narrative, ongoing narrative, self-exploration, and fiction/hoaxes. I found the last two the most interesting so I’m going to focus on those.
Self-exploration : Although you can say it is about self-exploration isn’t it more like we are just revealing what we want to? It’s like everyday life. We put up a front everyday, we act different ways with different groups of people, yet we act totally different when we are by ourselves. So is a blog dedicated to self-exploration actually exploration or is it just another self-imposed constraint?
Fiction or Hoaxes? Is a blogger telling a fictional story responsible for making sure that the reader knows it is not real? According to Merriam-Webster Online, hoax means: ”to trick into believing or accepting as genuine something false and often preposterous.” If that’s the case if you aren’t out to trick someone does that make it okay? After looking at a few sites about responsible blogging I have decided that blogs focused on creative writing don’t really fit into their guidelines. So where do you draw the line on creative blogging?
Interesting Links
10 Rules for Responsible Blogging
Policy for Responsible Blogging
Other interesting sites
Gangrey.com – “Prolonging the slow death of newspapers”
Beyond the end of the road’s blog
Pommel Stone - A book a blog post at a time
Tags: class, en3177, group assignment, narratives, self-representation, weblogs, wikis, writing
January 29, 2010 at 2:16 pm |
Jessica, your question about where to draw the line in “creative blogging” intrigued me. I have been typing in different words and searching all over Yahoo for the past fifteen minutes to try to find a list of rules or laws (self-imposed or set up by governments) for any sort of creative writer, and I have found nothing. I thought there would be something similar to the “Responsible Blogging” links you shared. If anyone else can come up with them, please post a link! It would make an interesting comparison.
My thought is that the creative writing posted on blogs should follow the same standards as the creative writing printed in literary journals or published as books. For instance, it would clearly be unethical for me to write a “creative nonfiction” story using the inside information I have about President Obama’s daughters. I do not have that information, so I cannot print it as nonfiction without suffering the consequences of a libel suit or something similar. By the same rule, I could not start a blog portraying myself as one of President Obama’s daughters without posting a disclaimer. Or else dealing with the consequences.
The examples in our textbook involved completely fictional characters and (far as I could tell) no money fraud. Therefore, they were not judged by law. In this area, it seems that we are left to our own personal standards.
Would I feel right lying for the sake of an online persona with millions of readers? Is deception within the bounds of law acceptable to me? Would that be any different than walking around campus falsely telling people that I am going to be on [insert name of well-known reality show]? For me, the answers would all be, “No.” In all cases, I am pretty sure someone would discover my lie anyhow. But other people, of course, consider this a thrilling experiment (as with the “lonelygirl15″ movies).
In the story that Dustin started, for another example, the main character uses his own name to blog a fictional story. His friend is concerned that people reading the story may not know where the line between truth and reality is drawn. Unless other real people are wrongly portrayed, this is probably no big deal. Winston is free to say whatever he wants about himself as long as it does not hurt someone else, right? Or…? I guess it raises the same question you did!
January 31, 2010 at 6:19 pm |
Hi Jessica
I think people who would write a hoax blog are just trying to get attention. Just the same as telling a hoax story to get on tv.
a blogger can’t tell every little thing about there day so you are right that it is only what we want people to know so you could leave out a really embarrasing moment or something like that. So you are really only showing people the you you want them to see. I totally agree with you that people act differently with different groups of people or by themselves.