My Neverending Story - The Research on Blogs

2008-07-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

Haaa. Two profiles down. Eight more to go. Just profile or data presentation. Data analysis and interpretation will follow in a week or so.

Hard to stay motivated, eh.

2008-06-18T17:07:00.000-07:00

Thesis on hold, again! Well, not really indefinitely. Just until I get enough sleep and I get my passport. :D I might work on it sporadically in the weekends.

Notes to self:
1. Prioritize thesis, dammit!
2. Listen to more Tambalang Balasubas at Balahura

2008-06-08T19:30:00.000-07:00

Work has started again! I haven't had a lot of time to work on my thesis. :) I've done 3 interviews so far, and I'll probably have to do the rest via email. I don't have a lot of free time this sem, as I've started full-time already.

I'm crossing my fingers and toes that I finish this thesis by next sem so that I can finally finally GRADUATE!

2008-06-02T01:05:00.000-07:00

One interview down, 9 more to go. Will do another one later. Thanks, moonpoolgirl, for the insightful and reflective data :D

2008-05-28T15:55:00.000-07:00

I'm hoping to do real time interviews with my respondents. It will either be conducted over the phone or via chat. Whichever it is, we'll see how it goes. I just want this damn thesis to be over with. Aside from worrying about this thesis, the week so far hasn't been good as lots of disturbing things happened. My emotional equilibrium has been rocked and dare I say I am sunk into hypomania. :(

Anyway, hope to hear from my respondents.

2008-05-19T15:19:00.001-07:00

Sent out my demo data sheet. Got some responses back quite promptly. Nice. Some respondents are suspicious, hesitant to give personal info. That's wise of them. Misdirected, but wise. Haha. Besides, I probably wouldn't want to give out my personal info via email. But such are the vagaries of research. Face-to-face interviews are impossible for me right now, so I have to be satisfied with the limitations of email interaction. I just need this damn thesis done. I'm so over it. :P

Data gathering is difficult, not just logistically, but more for the attitude the researcher must adopt. I'm not really a data-gathering person. I'd rather exist in my bubble, rather than disturb others in theirs. This is why I'd never be a paid researcher. I don't like data-gathering. The conceptual parts, I can handle fine. Give me a stack of journals and I can give you a kick-ass review of related literature. I enjoy doing the conceptual framework, linking variables and teasing out relationships. Data analysis also has the potential for fun. That's when all the hard work pays off. It's such a good feeling when the numbers add up and your hyothesis proves true. Or in the case of an exploratory research, when the results give a workable hypothesis.

But data gathering sucks. Period. Researcher characteristic, ladies and gentlemen.

2008-04-25T12:38:00.001-07:00

I have decided to expand the range of my young adult participants. I'm including those who are 26-30 now. I realized that Erikson's stages say that young adulthood is 21-30 years old. Goody. Now I can include the peeps in my personal network.

So dudes, what say you?

2008-04-14T04:10:00.000-07:00

A blog exists in a public space. The contents of a blog are private (for personal blogs). How do we reconcile these two contradictory ideas? To publicize what is essentially one's private thoughts, feelings, and even acts. This is one of the main points of my thesis. The bone of contention, as it were.

Excerpt from my unpublished and unfinished thesis:

In this light, public disclosure may be conjoined with a confessional or revelatory aspect. While not all public disclosures contain secrets, publicizing a personal thought or feeling may be dynamically akin to disclosing a secret. It is important to differentiate privacy from secrecy.

Bok (1989) gives an illuminating thesis on the distinction of what is a secret and what is simply private. Not all private items are secret, nor are all secrets confined to a person’s private life. The line between private life and public life is important to individuals, as human beings are naturally territorial. Along with the construction of physical boundaries in the form of personal space and territory, psychological boundaries are erected. In the external world, persons construct walls that divide public space from private abodes. Likewise, in the internal world, what is perceived as private and “mine” is held apart from a more public space upon which other people can enact influence and power.

The self is contained in the private realm. This contains a person’s thoughts, emotions, fantasies, and associations. This private space is closely protected against encroachment. When one’s psychological territory is threatened, defenses rise in order to repel the perceived invaders and conquerors. Persons naturally guard their privacy because this is where their internalizations and individual peculiarities reside. When one’s privacy is threatened, the anxiety that arises is similar to the feeling of being victimized by thievery. There is a sense of being offended and of being violated.
Secrets on the other hand exist both in private and public spaces.

Defined as “intentional concealment (Bok, 1989, 5),” secrets are hoarded and safeguarded more closely than privacy. When secrets come out, there is a feeling of one’s self being eroded and carried away in a wave of helplessness and despair. To keep a secret is to block information from reaching other people. There is also an air of exclusivity and a resulting euphoria that accompanies successfully keeping a secret. For some, secrets become sacred.

Motives for keeping secrets and maintaining privacy are similar. They are meant to prevent vulnerable feelings from overwhelming the individual. He or she feels more in control, not only of the social situation, but also of him or herself. The last refuge of an individual constantly threatened by conflicts both within and without is inside him or herself. In this private realm, information is saved like precious relics that no one must touch.

However, there are occasions when privacy is willingly ceded and secrets are freed. There must be compelling motives for public disclosure. When a person willingly reveals information to an audience of unknown size, potentially composed of strangers, friendly or hostile, he or she does not do so lightly. Is it an act of embracing vulnerability, of yielding control? Perhaps not.

2008-04-14T04:04:00.000-07:00

You see, anonymity and non-anonymity is a possible extraneous variable that I thought I could control. So I tried to look for participants that do not blog anonymously, that is to say, they reveal their real names on their blogs. However, I've found it so frustrating and almost impossible to find enough participants. Some simply do not respond to my invitation. Some must've fallen off the face of the earth. Add to this my stipulation that they should have been blogging for at least 2 years now. Quite a stringent list of requirements, as I'm discovering.

So, I had to add a whole 'nother discussion about anonymity and non-anonymity in my review of related literature. While that took about an afternoon, I guess I resented the additional work. Anyway, now that I've surmounted that obstacle, time to look for participants anew. Again, they have to be female (thanks to my panel's suggestion), aged 13-20 or 21-25 years old, and Filipino.

2008-04-02T17:51:00.000-07:00

Finding participants is harder than I hoped. But... *crossed fingers* ... I believe there are enough nice girls out there who' jump at the chance of being part of a landmark study :) Landmark, you say? Well, in the field of Psychology, it is. As of my latest review of related literature, there haven't been any studies that specifically answer my own research question. Which is weird, coz my research question seems to be the seminal point where all other researches could originate. The question is, "Why do people blog?" So simple, so prosaic, but really, it asks for the meaning that people ascribe to blogging. Meaning, where I believe everything comes from. I'm a constructivist!!!

Introduction

2008-03-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

Well, here I go. The first post of my research blog. I have no idea how long this journey into the blogosphere is going to take. But it's about time I get to it, don't you think?

In late 2005, I came upon the idea of making a study on bloggers and their blogging experiences. I myself have been blogging since 2002, first on mydiary.com then on blogspot. They say，“Write about what you know." I haven't always adhered to this principle, especially on my other blog *big grin* but for this one, I definitely know what I'm talking about.

What am I talking about? This blog is in conjuction with a study I'm doing entitled "Why Blog? Motives and Outcomes of Blogging" that I will hopefully successfully defend 1st Sem, 2008-09. Hopefully, because research is NOT for the faint of heart nor for the financially broke. I am in the data gathering stage now, and this will end in 3 month's time.

My name is Cristina T. Cheng. I am an MA Counseling Psychology candidate from Ateneo de Manila University. I was born on February 22, 1980, a Piscean monkey. Right now I'm a college instructor at one of the well-known but not necessarily prestigious schools in the Philippines. Oh, and I am a Filipino! Haha. You'll be surprised how much this question comes up.

Well, anyway, I can be contacted at chitinato[at]yahoo.com.