Final Blog Post

Blogs – a battlefield between truth and self-image

At first, blogs started out as simple tools for us to express ourselves – what we had for breakfast, how we survived through mid-terms, how we celebrated birthdays etc. Afterwards, blogging started getting more popular and noticed. It is good news that the global blogging community is growing – China alone has 17.5 million of bloggers according to the Internet Society of China , reported by China Daily’s news. But then, many are now using blogs as a popular platform to deliberately create certain self-images rather than writing truthfully.
Political Blogs

It is obvious that blogs set up by politicians are lot more than just personal blogs. Politicians or election candidates now set up blogs in hopes of getting in touch with the younger Internet generation. In the Legco by-election, 6 out of 8 candidates set up Yahoo! Blogs. Those blogs become “political blogs”. Stanley Chaing’s blog is mainly about his promotional efforts. Regina Ip upload videos of her visiting public housing residents to her blog to show she care for the grassroots. Donald Tsang’s blog is also more about his official activities, like visiting HK sports players and meeting HKCEE graduates. Even if he posts photos from his trips, he only post “proper” photos – no funny face, no silly photos.

And of course, we need to bear in mind that some political blogs aren’t even written by the politicians themselves. They may be written by assistants who are PR specialist to create good image.

 

Celebrity Blogs

 

Like politicians, celebrities (especially newcomers in the industry) have also started blogs to promote themselves.

Alex Fong posted one of his movie’s behind-the-scene trailer onto his blog. Kary tells her fans to get tickets for her 2008 concert. It is just an alternative channel for their publicity besides fan clubs and entertainment media. One blogger expose the fact that some blogging platform invites celebrities to write blogs – paying them “salary” with every new entry.

Employees’ Blogs

Political and celebrity blogs are those that are filled with deliberate, manipulated
and promotion-related content for specific purposes instead of being truthful. However, some blogs are forced to be “untruthful” against the bloggers’ will.

In the older days, when only email was the most common Internet tool, companies already had “email policies”. Now that blogs become popular, companies naturally want to restrain and control employees’ blogs too. But to everyone’s surprise, what comes next is not “blogging policy” – the companies start firing people right away. Microsoft fired an employee for putting up a photo of Microsoft computer’s shipping and loading process on his blog. Delta Air lines have also fired a female employee who upload photos of herself wearing uniform with her bra slightly visible. Being anonymous doesn’t help either, as the identity of the “masked blogger” from Apple is quickly revealed by searchers.

The 2007 Proof Point Survey reveals that 32% of large US companies employ people to read employees’ outgoing emails, and 20% has actually disciplined employees on improper use of blogs or message boards. In the past 12 months, 21.4% of companies surveyed had investigated the exposure of sensitive information via blog, and 9.1% terminated employees for such infractions. The Urban Dictionary has included the word “dooced” meaning to be fired because of blog contents wrote. Some web sites like BBC are quick to provide guidelines to panicking employees over legal issues of blogs, like whether it is ok to put company trademarks on blogs.

Employees-to-be also have something to fear, as employers now google potential job seekers’ blogs first before hiring. It is true that employers can tell a lot about job seekers’ attitude, daily life, work ethnics and history from blogs rather than well prepared interviews. So think twice before you write  “I argue with my boss and slap him” or “I take a 40 minute coffee break”. Obviously, employers will not want to hire someone with such blog entries like this or this. So also think thrice before posting a picture of you drunk in a rave party.

Conclusion

Although blogs are just tools for us to express ourselves in the start, it has now been used by different parties like politicians and celebrities to create positive self-images. We need to be careful and critical when reading these blogs.

Employees’ blogging has also become a controversial issue. More employers start to regular employees’ blog contents in fear of damaging corporate image or spilling insider information. Employers will also read through job interviewees’ blogs to get clues. In these senses blog contents are facing serious restrictions. Hopefully a clear set of employee blogging guidelines will be released soon and updates on legislation about blogging can be implemented so that less confusions will be resulted.
P.S. pictures are all screenshots from Yahoo! Hong Kong Blogs.

 

Filed under assignments | Comment (1)