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UWC2101U: Technologies of Home

A/P Barbara Ryan

Paper for Unit Three

A Private Affair for the World to See:

Resolving Contradictions within Personal Blogs and Privacy

In October 2012, a young couple found themselves under the harsh glare of the medias

headlights, receiving intense public censure and the authorities attention, for uploading

sexually explicit photos and videos of themselves on their blogs. The ensuing weeks saw

fervent calls erupting frequently over various media platforms to punish the couple, in a bid

to staunch the worsening tide of moral decadence among the younger generation. In an online

newspaper article entitled Vivian Lee defends erotic posts, the lady of the couple indignantly

announced her incomprehension of the publics harsh reactions, given that her blogging of

her sexual activities is, in her view, a private affair, into which she feels the public has

unfairly interfered. An interesting contradiction emerges, however, when this claim of

privacy is juxtaposed with her subsequent declaration that the sex photos on her blog were

intended for the world to see, implying that her activities were meant for public

consumption. How can one reconcile this oxymoronic contradiction between her perceptions

of her posting of her sexual activities online as simultaneously being both private and public?

A typical response to Lees seemingly incoherent remarks, as many netizens have

made, would be to dissect its logical flaws, in turn portraying her as an inane lady with both

loose morals and wanting intellect. However, such a response reflects an uncritical and

limited understanding of the notion of privacy, in relation to the blog as a personal yet social

medium. As much as it is worthwhile to explore issues concerning morality and customs, in

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this essay I shall be concerned only with Lees perception of personal blogs with regards to

the concepts of privacy. By juxtaposing the blog with a diary, this essay will uncover the

elements in Lees blog that would give rise to the abovementioned contradiction, revealing

her public-oriented inclinations. However, another comparison of blog and diary by

comparative media studies professor Jose van Dijck helps to reveal another oft-overlooked

facetproviding an avenue for self-definitionbetween the two objects, thereby questioning

common assumptions held of privacy. Finally, this essay will adopt a broader scope of

analysis by complementing the notion for self-definition with Geographer Paul C. Adamss

theories on spaces and selves, thereby arguing that Lees sense of privacy is tied to the self

she intends to convey, which is in turn derived from spatial considerations, such as that of the

home. Privacy, after all, is a concept commonly associated with the home; this broad

analytical approach seeks to comprehensively re-examine notions of privacy, yielding new

understandings of privacy in relation to the home and the personal blog.

An instructive way to make sense of Lees incoherent statements is perhaps by

examining her perceptions of the personal blog as a space where she can post her private

affairs. Three academics, Bonnie Nardi, Diane Schiano and Michelle Gumbrecht, offer one

useful lens to do so: their findings have shown that personal blogs are most frequently used as

a digital equivalent of a personal diaryan object often regarded as the epitome of privacy as

it enables users to indulge in the most intimate form of personal musing (222). By this

reasoning, it is unsurprising that Lee would derive a sense of privacy from her blog, as

observed from the strong sense of personalness and intimacy in the diary-like contents of her

blog entries, in which she has provided details of her sex life in the spirit of fun and love.

But conflating blogs with diaries by focussing solely on the blogs contents is

problematic; doing so obscures the fundamental differences between the two mediums.

Indeed, Nardi et al. note that the blog is actually of a highly social nature, for it is part of a

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larger communication space (222). By contrast, the actual diary represents to its user a

closed world (225), within which his or her privacy is secured by lock and key (222).

This understanding of the diary alerts us to the fact that the notion of privacy has to be

sustained by an accompanying element of insularity. Indeed, the word privacy as used in

the English language is commonly associated with enclosed, secure spaces, as evident from

phrases such as in the privacy of ones home. Given that blogs tend to preclude this

element of insularity, bloggers like Lee should be under no illusion that their blog entries

cannot be read by others. Their entries, Nardi et al. add, reflect this understanding too, given

that they tend to be crafted with an attention to audience, regardless of how personal,

deeply absorbed [and] hermetic they may seem (227). This analysis suggests that by

sharing her sexual activities with the whole world, Lee has shifted her sexual activities out

of the insular, private space into the public domain, thereby negating the deeply personal,

privatedimension in her activities.

It would be easy at this point to dismiss Lees acts online as an attempt to gather

public attention like a celebrity does, and that her use of the word private is but a deceptive

ruse for her to deflect criticism. Such a view, however, draws a simplistic dichotomy between

the terms private and public, as though the distinction hinges purely on the mediums

degree of insularity. A critical examination of the two terms, however, reveals a more

complex relationship between them. Consider how van Dijck draws our attention to a deeper,

yet oft-overlooked commonality between blogging and diary-writing. In an online article

entitled Composing the Self: Of Diaries and Lifelogs, she contends that the practice of diary-

writing, contrary to popular opinion, never happened in a social vacuum. Rather, like

blogging, it is a ritual that exhibits a communicative behavior: while ostensibly for

private use, the diary often betrays[s] an awareness of its potential to be read by others.

That such public-oriented behavior inheres even within the diarys closed, insular world

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stems from writingscommunicative nature, which evinces the users need to connect, either

to someone [whether real or imagined] or something else, or to oneself later in life. This

analysis illustrates that a mediums insularityneed not preclude the users intrinsic need to

communicate with a wider public. What, then, accounts for this communicativeness of diary-

writing and blogging?

The answer, van Dijck implies, lies in the common effect users intend to achieve

through these activities. Citing the example of Anne Frank, she argues that by carv[ing] out

a discursive space through her diary, Frankdefine[d] her position in relation to others and

the world at large. According to van Dijck, the blog acts in a similar way, in that its function

of enabling bloggers to articulate their thoughts allows them to defin[e] a sense of self in

relation to others. Van Dijck seems to suggest, from both statements, that the inherent

communicative functions of both activities enable their user to define his or her self.

If we examine closely Lees explanations for posting her sexual photos online, we can

identify a similar behavior in her actions. In the article, she reveals that the photos were

intended for the world to see how much [she and her boyfriend] love each other.

Additionally, those photos, to her, were a work of art; thus, by shar[ing them] with the

world, she hopes for the audience to see how pretty they were. It is worth noting that both

explanationsthe strength of her love and the artistic beauty of personal photos primarily

revolve around matters related to her self, which are subject to her personal, subjective biases.

Love between two persons is an ostensibly private matter concerning only the couple;

however, owing to their strong personal feelings for each other, they are unlikely to assess the

strength of their relationship objectively. The same goes for the prett[iness] of a photo:

given that the bodies in the photos belong to Lee and her boyfriend, Lee would likely be too

emotionally invested in the photos to cast her subjective feelings aside and arrive at an

objective appreciation of the photos true artfulness. Where subjectivity lurks in her personal

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perception of these matters, Lee seeks to communicate her activities to the wider public,

inviting them to partake in the viewing of her sex photos, in the hope of obtaining their

affirmation of her subjective self-perceptions.

At this point, one may argue that Lee may not assuredly receive the affirmative

response she so desires. Noteworthy, however, is the fact that diary-writers like Anne Frank

craft their entries with an imaginary audience in mind, whose imaginary presence

nevertheless engenders a self-defining effect on these writers as earlier mentioned. I argue,

thus, that this likely imagined sense of public affirmation Lee derives from her blog lends an

air of objectivity to the subjective perceptions she holds towards her photos, thereby enabling

her perceptions of love and artfulness, and consequently her self, to attain a more defined

quality. We see, then, that the personal self which the notion of privacy is fundamentally

concerned with can in fact acquire greater strength and definition from public, social

activities that involve interaction with a wider audience. This portrayal of publicness and

privacy being interdependent entities, which challenges Nardi et al.s assumption that privacy

and publicness are mutually exclusive concepts, suggests that a mediums insularity is not the

authoritative determinant of its degree of privacy.

Now that we have established that the act of self-definition on such communicative

mediums necessarily straddles both realms of privacy and publicness, how then do we

account for the sense of privacy Lee has towards her uploading of sex photos on her blog, in

relation to similar activities which she might consider public? After all, in the article, Lee

does draw a distinction between activities conducted for commercial purposes and those

for simply fun and love, while implying that the latter is, comparatively, private and does

not warrant sensationalis[ing], unlike the former.

To resolve this conundrum, I shall complement my earlier analysis of self-definition

with Paul Adams theoretical claims of relationality between ones selves and the

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corresponding spaces. In his book The Boundless Self: Communication in Physical and

Virtual Spaces (2005), Adams contests the assumption that within each individual lies only a

singular self which he or she seeks to define (21). Instead, he contends, humans possess a

repertoire of selves, each of which corresponds to a specific socio spatial segment[ed]

space, which exists in enormous varieties in our physical world (20). Consequently, Adams

posits that this huge variety in our physical spaces has led to the segmentation of our multiple

selves into numerous axes ofvariations, such aspublic and private (21).

In the article, Lees media responses echo this analysis of multi-selves as well. For the

bulk of the article, she presents herself as an open-minded woman, unafraid to share her

romantic, artful and, in her view, harmless sexual exploits with the wider world, and unfazed

by the social backlash that greeted her. As the discussion veers towards her family, however,

Lee shifts her stance noticeably, appealing to the media to not haunt [her family]. We see

thus that in the home, the sexually-daring Lee is replaced by a protective, dutiful daughter

whose sharing of her sexual exploits no longer confers feelings of goodness on herself, but

rather poses a threat to the familial peace and stability that she craves at home. It seems, thus,

that her affirmation-seeking behaviour is not an essentialised trait after all, but is just one

particular self of hers that she displays to the online world, a virtual space separate from the

home.

As we accept Adamss theory that gradations of privacy do exist along the socio-

spatial spectrum, some might argue that Leesonline self has to be a public one, for it was

displayed beyond the private home, and towards strangers instead of her family members.

Such a view, however, ignores the fact that the home is ill-suited for the romantic and artful

expression of Lees self which she perhaps feels can only be conveyed through her sex

photos. This self which Lee expressed online conflicts with the self she upholds in the home,

one that has responsibilities towards her conservative family. In this light, her posting of her

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sexual photos online are seen as a private act of self-expression to be kept hidden from the

home, but seeks affirmation by sharing with an online audience; this analysis, interestingly,

jars with the typical association of home with privacy and a space with strangers with the

public.

A closer examination of Lees interview responses in the article, through Nardi et al.s

examination of blogs and diaries, brings to light the multiple dimensions fraught within the

seemingly straightforward concept of privacy. In the case of Lees blog, these dimensions

exhibit conflicting tendencies owing to the blogs personal yet social nature. I have argued

that Lees blogging activities, while ostensibly public, may not be opposed to her sense of

privacy after all, but instead reinforce it, as implied by van Dijcks theories on self-definition.

This understanding of self-definition, inseparable from spatial concerns as Adams would

argue, prompts us to reconsider if privacy is truly found within the home, or that the blog,

public though it may be, may sometimes prove ironically to be the more ideal, private

space after all.

(2 197 words)

Works Cited

Adams, Paul C. The Boundless Self: Communication in Physical and Virtual Spaces.

Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005.

Chua, Eddie. Vivian Lee defends erotic posts. The Star/Asia News Network 18 Oct. 2012 .

AsiaOne.com. Web. 28 Oct. 2012.

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Nardi, Bonnie A., Schiano, Diane J., and Gumbrecht, Michelle. Blogging as Social Activity,

or, Would You Let 900 Million People Read Your Diary? CSCW '04 Computer Supported

Cooperative Work.n.d. 222231.ACM Digital Library. Web. 27 Oct. 2012.

Van Dijck, Jos. FCJ-012 Composing the Self: Of Diaries and Lifelogs.The Fibreculture

Journal 3.12 (2004) : n. pag. Web. 27 Oct. 2012.

This paper is written by Loh Chee Leong

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Loh Chee Leongs Cover Letter

Thesis: this essay will argu[e] that Lees sense of privacy is tied to the self sheintends to convey, which is in turn derived from spatial considerations, such as that of

the home.

Critical Question: How can one reconcile this oxymoronic contradiction between herperceptions of her posting of her sexual activities online as simultaneously being both

private and public?

Motive: However, such a response reflects an uncritical and limited understanding ofthe notion of privacy, in relation to the blog as a personal yet social medium.

(Note to Prof: Yvonne claims there is a disconnect between my critical question and my

thesis. In my opinion, the critical question serves primarily to raise an oddity (which probably

means it is not a criticalquestion), and my essay seeks to delve deeper than just reconciling

the contradictions, hence my signalling in my motive(-of-sorts?) that a critical and more

expansive analysis awaits, followed by contesting of assumptions several times (differences

underneath commonality, commonality underneath differences, multiple selves instead of a

singular one). Do you get the same feeling as Yvonne did, or do you see my essay the way I

do?)

Strengths:

If it means anything, this is the first essay in which I spent so, so much time and effortin setting out my ideas and providing orientation.

Weaknesses and questions:

My attempt to draw a link between my essay and ToHo feels very clunky.

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Mind if I ask if some (or many) of my points would need greater substantiation fromLees blog? Yvonne says I definitely need to, and to be perfectly honest, there were

several times I feel very circumscribed by my primary source, which includes only a

few remarks of hers in hindsight. Does my support for my points seem weak?

Does the part on acquiring public affirmation to define one self sound sturdy enough,considering that there is an absence of evidence both from external sources and the

primary source itself. Yvonne notes that it is but a mere postulation based on my

theory and that it is nothing more than a convincing possibility. But I notice that

many writers extrapolate from and reflect on the sources sometimes, thereby

formulating their own theories, which sometimes include considering the larger

picture (and yes, springboard, in a sense). Or am I wrong? Or is my theory more than

just a reflection/extrapolation and thus it feels like Im ramming it down my readers

throat? Please advise.

(409 words)

I shall take this opportunity to thank you, Prof Barbara Ryan, for the immensely enriching

learning experience you have given me for the past twelve weeks. It may not have been

reflected in my essay, but I have learned so much from you, and youll bet that I will be

sharpening these invaluable skills over the next few years (and hopefully, after that as well). I

shall await that one day when I can show you an essay of mine, of which you can feel really

proud, knowing that it is a product of your so wonderful teaching.

All the best

Chee Leong

- PS. And no. Im not writing this to earn brownie points.