Tess Fortier COMM 480: Media Literacy Participatory Culture Analysis: Mommy Bloggers In Americas past and present

culture, there has been high exposure to media platforms. Specifically, todays culture has brought to the table an even higher exposure to media due to the fast-paced growth of technology. We are not only able to read everyday news and happenings on the internet, but we are also able to contribute and share on a daily basis, forming various participatory cultures on the web. As defined by Henry Jenkins, a participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing ones creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices (Jenkins). A participatory culture that has grown to vast proportions and has made a big name for itself in the internet world is mommy bloggers. Simply put, mommy bloggers are women who are mothers (or on the way to motherhood) who write about anything from everyday happenings to world politics. Since the beginning of mommy blogging, it has been reported that there are nearly 79 million women online and of those there are 23 million women blogging, with many of those women being mothers and potential female bloggers (Wakefield). Because of this large number of mommy bloggers, many websites have been developed for the sole purpose of these women to come together and teach, give advice and guide other mothers within this participatory culture. One particular mommy blogging community is Babble.com. This online group is composed of parents in the online community, but has a large mommy blogger following. This online group of women epitomizes a participatory culture in its usage of affinity spaces to collaborate, teach,

Fortier 2 seek advice and share everyday experiences to expand knowledge and relationships with mothers on the internet. When looking at participatory cultures on the web, it is easy to see how they make an impact on those involved, especially with mommy bloggers. It is a culture in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another (Jenkins). In looking at research on the topic of mommy bloggers, their participatory culture is broad and varied; however, one thing that mommy bloggers do have in common is the use of blogging as an outlet for self-expression. According to a research study done at Southern Utah University, women often present themselves differently online than they would in face to face conversations by sharing secrets, recording personal stories, giving and sharing advice as well as bragging about personal and family accomplishments to others who may read their blogs (Wakefield). In the Jenkins reading, there are four forms of participatory cultures discussed: affiliations, expressions, collaborative problem-solving and circulations. With Babble.com, the content envelops all of these forms of participatory cultures. Jenkins defines affiliations as memberships, formal and informal, in online communities centered around various forms of media (Jenkins). While Babble.com does not have a formal membership, it definitely has a loyal following of mommy bloggers. Ranging in topics from pregnancy to pets, the community welcomes mommy bloggers of all shapes and sizes. Expressions is a form of participatory culture that includes producing new creative forms. Babble.com is technically an online magazine, but it is essentially produced by mommy bloggers who contribute stories and advice. The site does have editors and managers, but the content is mostly every day bloggers who produce and create. Collaborative problem-solving is working together in teams to complete tasks and develop new knowledge. Babble.com has a separate section on their site that is titled,

Fortier 3 Babble Voices. This section provides more than just contributed articles, but discussion boards, topics of interest, and every day postings by bloggers. These topics and discussion boards include kids, dealing with stress, life balance, work, school and more. On these discussion boards, mommy bloggers contribute to the site and expand knowledge to the public. Lastly, there is the last form of participatory culture, which is circulations. This is a form of participatory culture that shapes the flow of media, much like the blogging featured on Babble.com. What is being produced, created, and published through Babble.com plays an important role in understanding the participatory culture of mommy bloggers. An important part in fully understanding a participatory culture is understanding those contributing the content. Who are mommy bloggers? While it is already known that they are mostly women recording stories and advice of motherhood, there are other aspects of mommy bloggers that prove interesting to the participatory culture, especially with Babble.com. According to an article from Advertising Age, the creators of some of the more popular blogs and blogging communities are (or were) agency creative directors, advertising lawyers and women's-content developers for major media conglomerates (Thompson). In a study done by Lori DeRochers, she discusses radical mommy bloggers who are interested in changing the mommy blogosphere by stating, They were eager to shatter the stigma that women only wrote about children in their web logs; they were businesswomen and politicians and cultural commentators (DesRochers). This statement took the mommy blogosphere by storm, igniting controversy among the mommy bloggers. A mommy blogger who writes about motherhood, with no prior professional experience as a writer, responded by saying that mommy blogging is a radical act because it tells life exactly how it is. There are no sanitized or idealized blogs like television, and there is not the sensationalized information of a newspaper. It is the in between

Fortier 4 and realness that makes this writing so radical (DesRochers). Knowing how and why mommy bloggers write or choose to write plays an important role in understanding the world of mommy bloggers. The way in which mommy bloggers communicate to the world and fellow bloggers may seem plain and simple. They talk about motherhood. Contrary to that belief, not every mommy blogger simply talks about motherhood. There are various communicative norms that play into the voices behind the bloggers. For the most part, these mommy bloggers present themselves in a light that illustrates a woman who is humorous, witty, caring and loving to her children. Going back to the study done at Southern Utah University on self-presentation of mommy bloggers, the study explores Goffmans theory of Self-presentation to understand how moms use blogs to present themselves to others online. They state, Goffmans theory explains that every person is like an actor on a stage that is acting the part they want the audience to believe is the real them but off the stage this is not their exact person. Goffmans theory regards how, where and in what manner people present themselves (Wakefield). The study tries to determine whether mothers are truly approaching their communication as a window into their lives, or a platform to lift them higher in the public eye. In understanding this question, they were able to see that many mommy bloggers took the route of a diary- like style that allows them to self-disclose information about themselves online in a way that they may not communicate in public (Wakefield). Because there is no middle man or gatekeeper, mommy bloggers are rarely filtered or edited to perfection. With sites like Babble.com, there may be an angle in which a mommy blogger needs to take, but the words and structure are all hers. Social skills and cultural competencies play a big part in understanding these words and structures. For the most part, mommy bloggers employ skills such as, play, simulation, multi-tasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgment,

Fortier 5 networking and negotiation. When one really thinks about it, mommy bloggers do not dedicate their whole lives to blogging. Their dedication is focused on their children, but they are able to use these necessary skills to fulfill the lives of their children while fulfilling the lives of other mothers through interpretation, interaction, evaluation and experimentation. Looking at Babble.com or other mommy blogging sites, it is easy to see that they represent affinity spaces, which are ideal learning environments with informal learning cultures (Jenkins). The Jenkins reading also writes in detail, Affinity spaces offer powerful opportunities for learning because they are sustained by common endeavors that bridge differences in age, class, race, gender, and educational level (Jenkins). Mommy bloggers and sites like Babble.com are the epitome of an affinity space. While all mothers, these mommy bloggers come from all kinds of backgrounds, teaching and learning from each other at an informal levelan internet community. Babble.com allows mommy bloggers to participate in various ways, according to their skills and interests. It is dependent on peer-to-peer teaching with each participant continuously motivated to obtain new knowledge or refine their existing skills. At the same time, Babble.com allows each participant to feel like an expert while understanding the expertise of others. Some mommy bloggers post, others comment and vice versa. In the study done at Southern Utah University, it is suggested that there are three categories to determine the kinds of information that moms blog about: creativity, expressiveness, and intimacy (Wakefield). With creativity, moms are expressing themselves and learning from others through decoration and design features on blogs. This entails self-expression through photography, graphics and design. Expressiveness identifies the amount of text, presence of humor and the overall positive or negative outlook that the author displays on the blog. Lastly, intimacy identifies the level of

Fortier 6 personal information that is shared within the blog content, beyond the amount of content that is displayed (Wakefield). There are three challenges that participatory cultures face: participation gaps, transparency problems and ethics challenges. The participation gap refers to unequal access to the experiences, skills, and knowledge to help prepare for the future (Jenkins). In reference to mommy bloggers and Babble.com, there are many mothers who may not have the writing expertise of other mommy bloggers with higher followings. Because of this, they are not contributing to high profile and traffic sites like Babble.com. While Babble.com is chock full of everyday mommy bloggers, they are still hand selected based on what they are writing about and following. This participation gap may leave other mommy bloggers feeling less important in the mommy blogging world. According to the Jenkins reading, the transparency problem is defined as , The challenges young people face in learning to see clearly the ways that media shape perceptions of the world (Jenkins). In the mommy blogosphere, there is always the question of what is it to be the perfect mom? Much of the subject matter within the mommy blog world is based on children, cooking and activities. Some mothers may read blogs and create the alternate reality that all moms have to have the perfect crafts for their kids each day, gourmet dinners each night, and something new and interesting to write about on their blog. It causes some mommy bloggers to create this perception that all mommy bloggers are super moms. The ethics challenge breaks down the traditional forms of professional training and socialization that might prepare young people for their increasingly public roles as media makers and community participants (Jenkins). Because the internet is free reign for anyone to post information, there is little to no professional training when it comes to mommy bloggers. Their diary- like format allows mommy bloggers to say what they know and feel; however, there is still a level of ethics

Fortier 7 that must be maintained within the mommy blogosphere. This comes about when bloggers are asked to review products and compensated for their opinions or posting copyrighted materials like recipes, photos, stories or ideas that may not be theirs. There is still a code that mommy bloggers need to abide by to ensure that this problem of ethics is not a concern. Mommy bloggers have entered the blogging world by storm, creating their own participatory culture in the process. Babble.com exemplifies the participatory culture by illustrating the contributions and knowledge take-away of mothers in the mommy blogosphere. By bringing online mothers together, this participatory culture creates an affinity space for mothers to teach and learn from each other. Through self-expression

Fortier 8 Works- Cited DesRochers, Lori. The Radical Act of Mommy Blogging: Redefining Motherhood Through the Blogosphere. Diss. Web. <http://citation.allacademic.com//meta Wakefield, Shawna. "Self Presentation Online: An Analysis of Mom Blogs ." MA thesis. Southern Utah University, 2010. Web. <http://ehis.ebscohost.com.nuncio.cofc.edu/ehost/search/advanced?sid=e8339ea9dfea-4dab-b935-ccfb30388adb@sessionmgr12&vid=1&hid=3>. Jenkins, Henry. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Diss. Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Web. Thompson, Stephanie. "MOMMY BLOGS: A MARKETER'S DREAM. ." Advertising Age. 26 Feb 2007: n. page. Web.