Sun 5 Apr 2009
A couple of posts back I talked about the quest for authenticity in religious identity for emerging church bloggers, in an online environment where old etiquette rules have been removed, yet where new ones are surfacing. One of the most obvious communicative practices I have come across in my study of emerging church bloggers is what I call “the downplay”.
In line with stereotypes of the larger emerging church movement, bloggers I’ve studies are nearly all professional/student and have some degree of university education. Most have a theological qualification and some formal ministry training. Yet bloggers devalue their own training and education in conversations (though not those of others) to the point of self-deprecation. They do it a variety of ways:
1. Labelling their own opinions and propositions in posts and comments as “rants”, “random thoughts” or “musings”. These labels also appear as the titles of categories and tags, and titles or in subtitles of blogs themselves.
2. Using words and expressions such as “IMHO” (in my honest/humble opinion), “Not that I’m an expert but”, “I reckon” and “Just what I’m thinking about at the moment”.
3. If they do make a claim to some knowledge or expertise about a subject, it is based on claims of experience in church life or ministry, rather than education.
I think this etiquette practice represents two ideological stances. It firstly stands for the emerging church’s distaste for hierarchy. Though emerging church bloggers do not deny the benefits of good theological training, or are less than grateful for the opportunity to enter higher study, they do not want to set themselves apart from those without it. Secondly, it shows an interest in the private over the public. While posts and conversations may be centred around public issues, and bloggers recognise a public audience, they prefer a personal perspective. For them, any reference to qualifications represents a formal and public image, that masks a more private or inner perspective.
Update: As Rob mentioned in his comment below, emerging church bloggers are not the only bloggers who recognise this etiquette. Before Facebook and Myspace, blogs were a popular social networking tool for teenagers, and Bortree (2005) has noted in her study of such bloggers that ingratiation to others in teenagers’ network involved some suppplication, including downplaying their “coolness” in comparison to other people. Among these bloggers it was cool to think you weren’t cool.
April 5th, 2009 at 11:31
I think it’s fair to say, though, that this practice is not confined to religious blogging, and is fairly standard idiom on any blog. Most blogs will have a “rants” tag, and are phrased in such a way as to emphasise opinion, rather than knowledge.
Perhaps then the question becomes: what draws people to this medium, which encourages this form of expresion, when wishing to discuss religion and church?
April 5th, 2009 at 11:46
I think you’re absolutely right, Rob. It’s not just emerging church bloggers who follow this etiquette. The us of the word “rant” is almost a praise-word for blogging.
From the interviews I’ve conducted with bloggers and from many of their posts, the reasons are fairly plain: that blogging promises some freedom from the constraints of other forums for talking about church. As I said in a previous post, blogging promises a free parliament on authentic religious identity and practice. I guess what I’m wanting to explore in this series of posts is whether what blogging promises is close to what blogging actually provides.
April 7th, 2009 at 13:16
After thinking about this some more, I think perhaps another reason for the downplay, or at least another aspect of it, is that it encourages debate.
From my experience, blogs which convey an opinion have more active discussions in their comments than blogs which are more informational. Blogging etiquette appears to have developed to the point where it is perfectly acceptable to “argue” with someone over their opinion, than it is to argue over an informative statement.
Perhaps people are put off by the authority of an educated or informative post, and don’t feel in a position to respond. “I may not be able to counter your fancy college talk, but if you’re going to give your opinion, then I am going to give you mine.”
Even personal experience is “arguable” in that if the blogger has learnt something from personal experience, and the commenter has learnt something different from a different personal experience, the commenter can feel comfortable saying that.
April 8th, 2009 at 03:21
Totally yeah mate. If a blogger sets themself up as an “authority” on any topic, they’re not going to invite comments from readers with any sense of confidence. Bloggers are all too aware of this, wanting to make their space an even ground.
And to talk of experience is to imply is from a personal point of view, and highlight the limits of the argument/opinion, thus welcoming new perspectives.