Whither the Deaf Blogosphere?
To me, the word “whither” is associated in my mind with academia; I’ve been to enough conferences to notice that at least one panel has the word “whither” in it (as opposed to “wither,” but that’s a tale for another time…), no matter the conference. “Whither the American West?” “Whither Shakespeare?” “Whither Postmodernism?” “Whither Plain English?” “Whither Michael Jackson’s Nose?” “Whither O.J.’s Missing Glove?” You get the point. Even the upcoming conference at Gallaudet will have a panel, “Whither Gallaudet?” But I digress…
Today I’d like to touch on the deaf blogosphere, aka DeafBlogLand. In the last post here, “Celebration of Our Realm,” a lively discussion has ensued between Tom Willard and a few others. Most of the time, I leave such discussions in the comments section, and let them play out their natural course. But looking over what people had to say, I saw that people either directly touched on or danced around a very important issue– one that I think is worth discussing in a post of its own (and hopefully, sparking a new round of comments!).
Willard began by stating he didn’t think that the deaf blogosphere would continue to expand, and felt that it was a fad. A number of people disagreed with him, for various reasons. Although this is not what I found ultimately fascinating, I must jump in with my two cents here.
While I don’t think the deaf blogosphere/DeafBlogLand will expand as rapidly as it did during the protest, it certainly will continue to grow. I had a conversation with Tayler Mayer, founder and co-moderator of DeafRead earlier tonight, and he shared that there’s an average of 3-4 new blogs a week being added to DeafRead. While this isn’t exactly a tidal wave, it is still steady growth; whether these newer additions will last remains to be seen. I’m seeing new handles all the time, here on my blog in the comments section and elsewhere. Just as blogs on other topics and in other areas have grown, so will the number of blogs/vlogs in the deaf blogosphere. At some point, the number will plateau, and the community will mature– some people will stop blogging, or decrease the number of postings they make. A number of us will continue to post on a fairly frequent basis. Most of the rest will fall somewhere in between. But I don’t see this phenomenon going away. It’s not like Ringo or some of the other more obviously faddish elements of cyberspace. I see the deaf blogosphere as providing a home for us, as Moi pointed out.
Willard continues by saying that he feels that blogs are an ineffective use of time, and that direct action is preferable. While a number of commenters disagreed, I think Willard, in his comments, has indirectly touched upon a very important issue: Whither the Deaf Blogosphere?
While the conference at Gallaudet will focus on Gallaudet and what impact the deaf blogosphere had on it and how the deaf blogosphere can help shape or aid future discourse on Gallaudet, a lot of people initially thought the conference was about blogging/bloggers and vlogging/vloggers. As most of you know, certain people were invited, while certain others weren’t. For quite a few, the initial disbelief/consternation quieted once Jill Bradbury explained the purpose of the conference and her rationale for the participants and topics. But that still leaves a larger question that emerged when the conference was announced: What about us? What does the deaf blogosphere mean?
To make a long post short, the question I’d like to throw out is this: What do you see as the purpose of the deaf blogosphere? What should we accomplish? Should we be expected to accomplish anything? Obviously many of us worked together to have some impact on the outcome of the protests– it showed the community the power of the blogosphere. Do we continue to harness this energy? In what ways?
Lest you think blogs do not have power, they do. Blogging, hearing or deaf, originally began as online diaries/public journals of people’s lives, for the most part. I got interested in blogging partially due to encouragement from one of my best friends, and out of my long interest in creative writing, but it also stemmed from a blog I read, a journal by a hearing woman. She posts every day, and her posts are roughly the length of a newspaper column. While she does touch on regional, state, and national issues, popular culture, and other topics, it is essentially an open diary of her life. Lots of people still treat their blogs like that these days. One of the first deaf blogs I started reading was Erfo’s– she’s changed the title a few times, and right now it’s “human of the female slick” (although the URL remains the same, and is one of the best URLs I’ve seen out there on any blog!). It is, was, and remains an intensely personal public diary.
From beginnings as journals/diaries, blogs have evolved a great deal, and bloggers wield quite a bit of power these days on the public stage, especially those that focus on politics. From the Left to the Right, top-notch bloggers/diarists have hundreds of thousands of readers, and in fact, a coalition of bloggers, led by firedoglake and aided by Huffington Post, has been granted press access to the I[rving] Lewis “Scooter” Libby trial, set to open to much on- and off-line fanfare on Tuesday, January 16– less than 48 hours from now. The Right has wielded a fair amount of influence as well, from Instapundit to Little Green Footballs (and this is probably the only time I’ll mention these two sites, much less in the same sentence, here. So take note of this historic moment and act accordingly. You won’t be seeing this happen again).
Blogs have been responsible for politically-related news items, as well as cultural events, in the last few years as well. The well-known Wonkette revealed the sexual escapades of Washingtonienne, who was sleeping with another Capitol Hill greysuit. DC Metro didn’t seem so grey after all for a while, in the fallout from the sexual trysts outlined online. Far more fallout resulted from blogger Lane Hudson’s revelation that Mark Foley was playing online footsies with teenaged House pages– and Masturgate was born.
It isn’t just in DC where blogs have impact, but politics has benefited greatly from blogging/bloggers, where citizens can stand on their own virtual soapbox. While some of it is the type of “talk talk talk” Willard decries, it’s the collective and individual actions that can and have made a difference, as evidenced by the examples I’ve given above. The difference is, instead of inviting twenty people for a conversation at my home, I can log on and find hundreds having a conversation on topics that interest me. But the end result can be the same– direct action born of these discussions.
Which leads me back, again, to the questions I posed in the middle of this post. I’d love to know what you think: What do you see as the purpose of the deaf blogosphere? What should we accomplish? Should we be expected to accomplish anything? Obviously many of us worked together to have some impact on the outcome of the protests– it showed the community the power of the blogosphere. Do we continue to harness this energy? In what ways? How is the deaf blogosphere evolving? How should it evolve?
A lot of questions, but I think the answers could be very interesting– possibly revealing, and potentially outlining our future.
I think it boils down to quality vs quantity, signal vs noise, and a whole host of other overused cliches.
Off the top of my head, I can probably name 5 top-quality blogs. The rest of them are various strikes against them (stylistic, grammatical, topic choices, etc.)
There needs to an expansion of deaf bloggers who write about ALL issues, not just about one topic (ie: gallaudet protest).
-Neil
A lot of “older” Deaf people pine away for the Good Old Days of the Deaf American, the NAD Broadcaster, The Silent News, etc, etc. Those publications were wonderful communication devices for their time — indeed, they were the ONLY way for Deaf people to share information coast-to-coast and around the world, 50 years ago.
But times have changed! Often, because of financial or staffing problems, we would get issues that were weeks, if not months out of date. Typically, the writing was excellent from both a grammatical and a literary perspective, but most of the writers were post-lingual deafies, and prided themselves in their English skills. Indeed, they frequently denounced ASL as a “lesser” form of communication.
The year is 2007! Today, we have access to information immediately. No one wants to wait a month or more to hear about what “happened” at Gallaudet! Today we expect to be involved, to be a part of the action! Thus the BLOGOSPHERE has impacted Deafness like no other communication modality ever before. The recent “unpleasantness” at Gallaudet could never have happened in 1960, 1980 or even 2000. Only the availability of Blogging (VLOGGING too), Instant Messaging, wireless communications, etc has made it possible to actively participate in the decision-making process.
This active participation is THREATENING to institutions who, in the past have been able to say, “We’ve DECIDED, you DEAL WITH IT!” Today, the message from Deaf people is, “You’d better INCLUDE US, or suffer the consequences!” Whether the dismissal of Queen Jane was right or wrong, the graphic evidence of a shift in power was immediately evident in MAY. Sadly, it required over 6 months of friction for the message to get through to some pretty traditional Hard Heads!
Will BLOGS continue to be a force in the Deaf Community? ABSOLUTELY, until a better means of communication emerges. VLOGS are a more powerful communication technique WITHIN the Deaf Community, but I suggest they are less effective with the Audists who hold onto the power. Since, by definition Audists can’t understand ASL, they will likely continue to disregard the information in VLOGS. But they CAN’T ignore BLOGS, unless they refuse to read English.
The issue of grammar needs to be addressed, too. Some people criticize Deaf writers because of English grammatical errors. True enough. But such people DON’T criticize BLOGGERS from other countries who write in English and make similar grammatical errors. Check into some Russian or Japanese or French Blogsites — you will see many postings written in English (so the “world” will understand), but with numerous grammatical and syntactical errors.. People write in English as their Second Language because they want MORE PEOPLE exposed to their thinking. Are these people “stupid” because they don’t have perfect grammar? Of Course Not! We want to understand their feelings, their anger, their joys — even though their English is imperfect.
Deaf BLOGGERS should be given the same respect! I want to understand what they are thinking — I don’t care that noun-verb agreement is incorrect! I can clearly understand what they MEAN, and that’s the point! Recently I saw a VLOG of a hearing student who is learning ASL. This person’s signs were immature and her syntax was very basic, but I understood her meaning! I didn’t write a major critique of her emerging skills in ASL because her signs were “too hearing”…
I’ve preached long enuf. Think about it.
Ok, Neil– “quality vs quantity”– how so?
Should grammar be a strike against deaf bloggers? Why?
I do agree with you though, that I’d like to see more variety in terms of opinions and topics. While I enjoy deaf politics and topical issues concerning deafness, the Deaf-world, and ASL, it’d be great to see some of us talking about things in general. There’s more to life than just being deaf, IMHO.
I.C. Voices, those were all good publications at their peak. But as you said, even in their prime, they were often late.
As for the writers/editors, are you saying that it’s wrong to take pride in being fluent in any language? Looking down on ASL isn’t appropriate, I agree, but I don’t see anything wrong with being proud of one’s English. If anything, I think it would be great to have role models to emulate in terms of learning language, whether it’s ASL or English. I often enjoy watching vlogs, dissecting the vlogger’s signs and their word choices, their use of classifiers.
You state, “The recent “unpleasantness†at Gallaudet could never have happened in 1960, 1980 or even 2000.” Actually, it did in 1988; perhaps not for as long or as difficult a time, but the decision-making process then was fairly smooth. However, you’re correct about the ability of the community at large to participate.
You also say, “Will BLOGS continue to be a force in the Deaf Community? ABSOLUTELY, until a better means of communication emerges.” What better means do you envision? You seem enamored of vlogs, and I think they are a natural progression– not just in the Deaf community, but at large too. Look at the popularity of YouTube.
The point you made about grammar is a good one– some of my hearing students were foreign students, and they wrote very similar to deaf people I know. It all stems from the issue of English as a Second Language. Do you feel that perhaps that needs to be a focus of bloggers/vloggers? A push for a reconsideration of education?
I’d love to hear what you have to say on my other questions: do you think the deaf blogosphere has a purpose, and if so, what is it or what should it be? How can we best harness this energy? Where do you see blogs going? How should they evolve?
Thanks for stopping by– I enjoyed reading your thoughts!
To answer your question: If you asked me before re: grammatical issues, I would have said no. However, in today’s age of Vlogs and Blogs, I really think that quality should be excellence in the field they are v/blogging about.
For example, I would look for excellent Vloggers who can present their “tidbits” quickly, clearly and in a way that captures my interest. I get tired after a while of seeing sunny Hawaii and Carl Schroeder’s tank tops in the same spot every time. (no offense, intended, Carl… I do live in dreary/cold/not-snowy PA)
What I’d love to see is more diverse backgrounds, original reporting on-scene, and even interviews with other people.
Among the bloggers, clearly written (yes, that includes grammar as well and I will admit I’m probably not the best in that field) entries on a VARIETY of topics that do not make one feel like they’ve just donated their retinas to The Wordsmith’s School for Rejects.
Neil, intriguing thoughts. I, too, find that the more polished the blogs/vlogs are and the more linguistic proficiency they have in either language, the more they appeal to me and the more I’m willing to come back. However, I’ve seen so many bright deaf people nervous about writing or signing because their output is not “perfect,” and I personally blame deaf education in general (both mainstreaming and schools for the deaf), including their insistent emphasis on perfect English, for this. I’ve been so thrilled by how many deaf people are willing to write publicly, thanks to the advent of blogging. So I’m reluctant to insist on this. I feel we as a whole need to be more open to English that is comprehensible, includes a variety of sentence structures, and high-level vocabulary, yet is not without some flaws here and there that do not interfere with comprehension. I empathize and understand where you’re coming from, though!
Regarding topic choices - I suspect there are two causes for the dearth of blogs writing about a variety of topics. One is that the deaf community is experiencing a paradigm shift, a raising of consciousness, as it were (in my opinion, at least), which makes it only natural that this would be a heavily-blogged topic at this point in time. The second is DeafRead. I have a private blog for friends and family only, and I started it long before I launched my public blog last summer. I write about a wide variety of topics most of the time, including politics, movies, general life observations, language in general, and a lot more. When DeafRead launched, I ported some relatively recent entries to my public blog , including a few non-deaf-related topics. Only the deaf-related topics got picked up. I’ve also noticed TONS more hits when the topic is deaf-related than when its not, and I’m talking about hits that come from my RSS feed or sources other than DeafRead. So I’ve figured my public audience is more interested in that type of entry. Hence, I leave other topics to my private blog. I suspect I’m not alone, and DeafRead has contributed to that perception among many of us bloggers.
Neil and Moi, you bring up some good points. I also agree about the need for quality, Neil, and as I said before, would like to see more diversity in topics. Interviews are a great idea, and I’m seeing that from time to time– for example, Ridor’s interview with the woman who was heading off to the Middle East was way too brief- I wanted to know more. Teri Sentelle’s interview with Robert Walker was a welcome change of pace. As I commented on her blog, I’d love to learn more about deaf artists in our community, from painters to photographers, etc.
However, Moi brings up a good point that echoes what I.C. Voices was saying– we have a community now where many of the bloggers may be proficient in English, but many commenters who range from the brightest in our community to more of the rank and file, and not all of them are or can be eloquent. Yet each person’s opinion is valid. How do we encourage dialogue and involvement without screening people out? For me, comprehension is the key.
The second, and I think more important, point by Moi is the skewed ratio of postings on deaf-related topics. I love DeafRead, but I think this is one weakness– too many people are enamored of DeafRead and addicted to the number of hits, the audience. I know it can be an ego-booster and a rush when you suddenly have 300+ people checking out what you have to say. But I think the Deaf community potentially has so much power to do more than just work on issues solely within our community. Blogging (and to a lesser extent, vlogging) gives us a tool that we can use to interact with and carry on a dialogue with the blogosphere at large. Joseph Rainmound did that to an extent during the protest, when he posted “diaries” at Daily Kos educating Kossacks about what was going on. It’ll be “cross-pollination” like that that allows us to have a voice, where we can then not only agitate for changes within, but perhaps start to wield some influence in other areas.
It also keeps our dialogues insular as well– it’s one of the reasons I post whatever I want, from personal stuff to politics to, yes, deaf issues. I’d rather have a smaller audience that I can have an exchange with, than 300-400 people quickly digesting what I say, spitting it out, and then clicking on the next blog posting featured that day on DeafRead.
So… to make a long comment/response short: how do we shape the deaf blogosphere in a way where we start to expand the kinds of conversations we have? Or are we as a community doomed to discuss, dissect, rehash, and complain about the same issues we always do (not that some of the topics don’t need to be tackled– they *do*)?
Mr Sandman…
Thanks for your insight and comments. Let me respond to a couple of your points…
DPN in 1988 WAS a powerful step in identifying and confronting Audism (even though we didn’t know that word in 1988). People across the country WERE involved, but we relied on telephone and TTY communication, as well as the CBS Evening News. As you know, the “hearing” media was much more friendly to the DPN protest than to the IKJ/JKF debacle. I lived in California at the time, and we had mini-protests way out there, but no real “coordinated” effort such as we saw this past year. Thus, I think the Blogs had a major impact on spreading detailed information about the day to day activies on Gallaudet campus, and Tent Cities were set up all over the globe! What an amazing show of power.
I agree that the issue of English fluence might have an impact on the readers of Blogs, but in my opinion, the content of the messages is much more important than grammatical perfection. People who are “hung up” on English skills need to ask, “Do I understand what this person is trying to say, and do they make a good point?” I love Ridor’s Blog because he usually makes excellent points (whether I agree or disagree), despite weaknesses in his second language.
The reason I LOVE Vlogs is because they eliminate the “grammatical flaws” in English (but they certainly EXPOSE grammatical flaws in ASL). I’m sure if I were to post an ASL Vlog, purists would criticize my sign structure and syntax unmercifully!
Your question about the Deaf Blogosphere is an interesting one. I don’t think it can (or should) be harnessed to accomplish any particular goal. Thats the beauty of the Blogs! You can say ANYTHING you want (regardless of how ridiculous) and people will respond and react. It is as close as society has ever come to PURE Athenian Democracy… If they Founding Fathers had been subject to Blogs, I’m sure our Constitution would have emerged much differently! Can you imagine a Blog hosted by slaves in the Deep South? WOW!
Please keep up this stimulating conversation… You’re insight is highly valued (by me, anyway)…
Hello again, I_C_Voices– the media was far more friendly to DPN than to Tent City for one major reason (at least in my humble opinion!): it was a far more black-and-white situation with a clear, easy narrative. The issues during the Tent City Protest were far more complicated, and as I’ve said previously, the protesters on the ground may have done a great job at the front gates, but frankly, they sucked at managing PR. It became far more easier for the press to follow the simplistic narrative offered by Fernandes, Jordan, et al, which was “she’s not deaf enough.” Jordan’s still running with that line in his Op-Ed, sadly enough.
I agree with you about content counting more than grammatical perfection, but I still think there needs to be a certain amount of clarity to attract and keep an audience. While Ridor has been very honest in assessing his English skills, I think he’s a bit too self-demeaning– his English is rather good, and he comes across clearly. It’s part of why he retains an audience. As you yourself state, it’s about “understanding.”
I like vlogs too, but they need to be captioned/subtitled if the vloggers want to reach a larger audience. If they can do so (and I know it’s not easy!), there’s a good chance vlogging could become the choice of medium for the deaf blogosphere. Todd’s vlogs over at Triomphe L’oeil are an excellent example– fantastic ASL coupled with subtitling/captioning.
Thanks for answering my question! I’m not sure that the deaf blogosphere should be harnessed to accomplish any one goal either, and I agree- the blogosphere in general does mimic a public square. A blog hosted by slaves in the deep South would be VERY interesting, and that actually would be a great classroom tool for a history course.
Would love to know what else you (and others!) think about the future of the deaf blogosphere. It may be this conversation will die out here for now, and be picked up later, but I think it’s definitely an ongoing one.
A quick comment from a hearing person who’s trying to learn Irish Sign Language:
Please don’t caption sign language videos. It makes it impossible for people who are trying to learn the signed language to concentrate on the signs. Rather, give the English translation separately, as text. This also allows web search engines to pick it up, so I’m more likely to see it.
Of course, if you could get someone who can speak to do a voice-over, so we hearing people could get the ASL and the English simultaneously, it would be another help to learners. I appreciate, though, that that would be a large effort for small return. (And, besides, it’s ISL I’m learning, not ASL. Are any of you people aware of any ISL vlogs?)
Timothy, that’s so cool! I remember when I was at Gallaudet occasionally an international student or scholar would offer a course on their native signed language. I never took advantage of the opportunity, I’m ashamed to say.
Hmm… I think maybe there needs to be a compromise on captioned vlogs. Perhaps those vlogs that merely deal with mundane issues or the Deaf-world could remain uncaptioned, while those with a political or social message for everyone, or that is reaching out beyond the deaf community to interested hearing parties could be captioned for everyone to be able to understand the content.
Although I do admit offering a written translation separately is also a great solution.
I’m not aware of any ISL vlogs– that’s a very good question…