Reading on Kendall

"Shout into the wind, and it shouts back. Identity and interactional tensions on LiveJournal" by Kendall discusses the conflicts and tensions of identity and information management that users of LiveJournal have. According to Kendall many users have contradictory thoughts on identity and information management. The model of a private diary conflicts with the reality of public performance. The fact that a user can efficiently reach a broad network of piers conflicts with the users desire to manage its audience. The desire to control their own journal conflicts with the desire to connect with others. The desire for autonomy conflicts with the desire for feedback and approval from others. 26 LiveJournal users were interviewed on these topics, and although the 26 users are not a very diverse bunch, they prove just how conflicting the thoughts on these topics are.

Most of the users on LiveJournal think of their posts as private diary-like journal entries, but at the same time, they are consciously writing to an audience. While they are recording personal thoughts, feelings and daily events, “just for themselves” as they say, these journals are a form of performance. George, one of the interviewees said, “You either want to entertain them or create a change in their behavior.” People are aware that nothing on the internet is private. As Robert said, “If I have things that are actually private they are not up on the Internet.” LiveJournal is both a place for diary entries and performance. Users can catalogue their daily events, say something to an audience, and comment on each others journals.

LiveJournal is a great source of networking. It is an easy way to make things available to friends and family. On the other hand, users don’t always want all of their contacts as an audience. Mark a user, said, “When William was born, that’s the first place I went, to do a post there because I knew that a bunch of [friends from an online group] read it and a bunch of [friends from a previous job] read it and some of [my wife’s] family read it. And it’s like here’s one easy place I can go. I can put up a picture and everyone will see it and so that’s the first place I went.” On the other hand, users like to separate their audiences at times, “These two completely separate areas of my life suddenly collided.”- Dylan. Users appreciate the easy networking capabilities of LiveJournal, but at times like to present themselves differently to different groups of people.

LiveJournal users have a desire for control over what they read; simultaneously they have a desire to establish connections with other users. This is such a conflict, because filtering out portions of a user’s journal will hinder the connection you will make with them. It is important not to disregard portions of journals especially because it is hard to communicate on LiveJournal, as Robert said “It wasn’t designed as a mechanism for holding big conversations, really”

LiveJournal users enjoy the fact that they can write what ever they want in their personal journals, but commenting doesn’t quite have the same autonomy. When you post a comment on someone else’s journal, they can delete it. This can lead to misconceptions to what you were commenting. Users fear that if they write about an individual, that the individual may read it. Both of these factors contribute to hindering the autonomy of one’s journal.
LiveJournal presents many social tensions among its users. These tensions are all present in everyday society, but are more apparent on the website. Users’ desires inhibit their own, and other users’ values. Users truly seeking autonomy should not be concerned with others have to say.