Blogging: Self-Representation and Privacy

This article is actually very relevant to my research topic: social media and privacy. Blogging in particular is an interesting activity because on one hand, many people enjoy expressing their innermost thoughts and daily activities, but on the other hand, they desire a certain degree of privacy and know they need to be careful about what they share. McCullagh discusses that privacy is a complex idea; different people have varying definitions. She describes some of the privacy-related concerns of bloggers, and one survey question was about how well the bloggers felt they knew their audience. About 8% new their audience very well, 23% very well, and 32% quite well (9). Bloggers need to keep in mind that if special restrictions are not activated, anyone in the public can read their blog posts, and that once those posts are out in the open, anyone has the power to archive that or even distribute it elsewhere. Quite of these blogs are meant to be online journals, and many choose to write under pseudonyms and limit the clues that unwanted readers could use to tie their real-life identities with their online ones.