Some questions for my interdisciplinary readers with knowledge of psychology and sociology (this will not be of any interest to those of you who have not spent time "surfing" blogs--which I don't recommend [I have tried to link to worthwhile items and blogs]):
Is there any pertinent literature yet on the psychology and the sociology of the blogosphere? (Perhaps there is pertinent literature on Internet chat rooms, that would apply here as well.) I'd be curious to know: the subject seems a rich one for investigation.
Psychologically, for example, it would be interesting to know whether there is any pattern to the "types" of folks who blog, in particular, the folks we might call "Blogopaths," those for whom blogging appears to be a substitute for real life.
Blogopaths pen lengthy tomes about every topic; they appear to blog 24/7; they pounce almost instantly at any slight or mention from another blogger; they are frequent "commenters" on other sites, always with links to their own blog; their blogs include "endorsements" by other bloggers, and so on. Blogopaths are the folks well-described in an e-mail by one trusted reader: "These [types] are unfulfilled people not unlike, figuratively, the homeless who rummage through garbage bins. Cyberspace is their alley, their raison d'etre. It gives them a reason to get up in the morning." (The same reader offered the most memorable description of the blogopathic part of Cyberspace, calling it a "sub-universe of dementia" populated by "marginalized sociopaths" who crave "publicity, [which] allows them to fantasize that they are real and engaged and relevant.")
So is the Blogopath a type? If so, is there a DSM-IV category that covers this type? Is it symptomatic of, e.g., obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, or something else?
Sociologically, what if anything do we know about the demographics of Blogopaths? It appears to be an overwhelmingly male phenomenon, to start. There also appear to be a disproportionate number of gross "underachievers" (folks with mediocre academic credentials, folks who are undistinguished in their professions, and so on, i.e., people without real-world achievements or, in some cases, attachments). The demographic profile may shed light on the psychological questions.
A different sociological question (one that resonates with an issue current in law schools) concerns the "norms" of the blogosphere and the informal enforcement systems for those norms--this question extends beyond the Blogopaths, obviously.
The primary norm seems to be an egalitarian one: all blogger opinions are presumptively equal (that's usually expressed with the word "thoughtful": e.g., "Blogger X has a thoughtful post on...but I disagree"). (Given the point about underachievers, above, it is hardly surprising that this norm should have arisen.) Given that the presumption is unwarranted (perhaps absurd), its violation seems inevitable. What "enforcement" mechanisms are there, then, to insure compliance?
This is a curious feature of the blogosphere, namely, that the only regulatory tools available seem to be (1) verbal reprimands and abuse and (2) refusals to link. (2) is obviously trivial, except perhaps for those whose only point of entry to the world is via their blog. And (1) suffers from the same drawback: verbal reprimands and abuse from others whose only "connection" is that they too have a blog is, obviously, meaningless. (When it is transparently politically motivated, as rather often seems to be the case, it is worse than meaningless: it is silly.) Verbal reprimands work in the real world between people with human ties, whether personal or professional: it matters if your friends or your colleagues or your professional peers disapprove of your norm violation, but it matters because of the tie, not because of the mere fact of disapproval. (I imagine sociologists must have some good way of conceptualizing this point.) That does mean, of course, that verbal reprimands may work in the blogosphere between those, like the Blogopaths, for whom "being in the blogosphere" is experienced as an "actual" tie.
Related versions of the psychological and sociological questions might also be asked about the comments sections on blog, and especially about the chronic commenters, the "bottom-feeders" of the blogosphere, as it were, whom the Curmudgeonly Clerk memorably diagnosed some time ago: "those who comment frequently seem to be emotionally and/or intellectually stunted." (There are, as always, honorable exceptions of course.)
So readers: what research has been done? My e-mail: bleiter at mail-dot-law-dot-utexas-dot-edu. I'll post useful references in due course.
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