Papers by Julian Hopkins
This article reflects on the persistence of discourse that separates 'real' - offline - activity ... more This article reflects on the persistence of discourse that separates 'real' - offline - activity from (by implication) 'unreal' online activity.
It used ethnographic data from 'SoPo' (social-political) blogmeets in Malaysia to provide insight in the Malaysian goverments repressive approach to internet activity.
Click here for a free author copy from the publishers website (limited to fifty copies): http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/EG4Qdi5iBDuRTNGttXci/full
Nexus: New Intersections in Internet Research, Dec 1, 2010
This chapter draws upon extensive fieldwork 1 to analyse the relatively recent phenomenon of Mala... more This chapter draws upon extensive fieldwork 1 to analyse the relatively recent phenomenon of Malaysian " Lifestyle " bloggers writing paid " advertorials, " and looks at potential consequences in terms of the underlying practices and values of blog-ging. Personal bloggers, from which the Lifestyle genre emanates, are a category underrepresented in academic studies, despite constituting the majority of bloggers (Cenite, Detenber, Koh, Lim, and Ng, 2009, p. 589), and the monetization of blogs is even less examined. By examining the objective relations that underlie the particular social positioning of bloggers, and those economic structures in operation which enable the process of monetization, we unpack the notion of the Lifestyle blog as an increasingly common, explanatory class in the wider practices of blog-ging in Malaysia. We understand the class not as something given, but as something constituted, or to be done, via networks and discursive activity. Following boyd, we conceptualise blogging " as a diverse set of practices that result in the production of diverse content on top of a medium that we call blogs " (2006, para. 1). Personal bloggers tend to feel that their blog is an extension of their self, both as a cathartic means of self-exploration and a reflexive repository of their thoughts; " the conventional ethos [is] 'I blog for me' " (Reed, 2005, p. 237), which resonates with Giddens' discussion of self-actualization, whose " moral thread […] is one of authenticity […] based on 'being true to oneself ' " (Giddens, 1991, p. 78; original emphasis).
Whereas the great majority of blogs are of the ‘personal’ genre – i.e. diaristic accounts of indi... more Whereas the great majority of blogs are of the ‘personal’ genre – i.e. diaristic accounts of individuals’ lives – academic research has focused mostly on the ‘social-political’ blogging genre and its relevance to the democratisation of the public sphere. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and drawing upon anthropological critiques of economic theory, this paper discusses the complexities of the articulation of personal blogging with existing models of media advertising in Malaysia. By conceptualising personal bloggers’ provision of advertising space and ‘advertorials’ (paid blog posts), this paper argues that the monetisation of personalblogging has resulted in a new blogging genre, the ‘lifestyle blog’.
The advertising industry in Malaysia has responded to the destabilisation of the advertising market enabled by blog affordances by seeking to internalise the bloggers who represent “voicy consumers” in the “economy of qualities” (Michel Callon). Robert Foster has argued that surplus value is created for brands “through the everyday practices in whichconsumers use branded goods to create social relations and shared meanings and affect.” In effect, the diaristic practices of personal bloggers create both an opportunity for this process to take place and, for the more popular bloggers, a platform for advertisers to reach significant portions of a younger, more affluent, audience. By paying bloggers to incorporate brands in their blogposts, the advertisers seek to entangle the brand with the bloggers and their audience’s shared network of meaning, or dynamic assemblage.
While these findings are based on the Malaysian context, they have particular relevance for Singaporean blogging, as well as potential relevance for blogging worldwide, which has seen an increased interest in blogs as an advertising platform embedded in local and contextualised markets.
Asian Journal of Communication, 2014
The advent of the Internet has enabled a disruption of the Malaysian government’s long-standing c... more The advent of the Internet has enabled a disruption of the Malaysian government’s long-standing control of media content. However, there are also opportunities for the government to extend into the Internet what Cherian George has called “narrow tailoring” policies, designed to ensure “hegemonic consensus.” Demonstrating the interconnections of intra-party factional rivalry, blogging, and newspaper management, as well as the extension of government influence into online content, this paper discusses three cases: the transformation of a bloggers association; the organisation of ‘cybertroopers’ by the dominant governing party; and, the use of a blog, Facebook, and Twitter by the Prime Minister, Najib Razak.
Each of the cases highlights particular ‘blog affordances’, a concept used to parse the potentials and limitations of blogs and other social media with regards to state hegemonic control through media ownership. In addition, an adapted concept of ’extended parasocial relations’ is proposed in relation to Najib’s blog and social media presence. Overall, these cases demonstrate the continuity and complementarity of on- and offline activities, which form a relatively stabilised assemblage of political activity.
Selected Papers of Internet Research, Oct 2013
Drawn from a long-term ethnographic research into personal blogging, this paper proposes a theore... more Drawn from a long-term ethnographic research into personal blogging, this paper proposes a theoretical approach to the issue of materiality and culture in technology that combines the concept of affordances and that of Deleuze & Guattari’s concept of assemblage. Highlighting the relational aspect of these concepts, a list of blog affordances is proposed. These can provide a basis for further analysis of blogs as well as other internet media forms.
"As the use of the internet has expanded in Malaysia, it has become an important means for politi... more "As the use of the internet has expanded in Malaysia, it has become an important means for political actors to bypass the government controls on the mainstream media. Blogs, in particular, were argued to have been central in bringing out the setbacks experienced by the ruling coalition in the General Elections of 2008.
This paper traces the development of an association of bloggers – All-Blogs – from 2007 through to its replacement by Blog House Malaysia in 2010. Using material drawn from media reports and from a long term ethnographic study of blogging in Malaysia, this paper will trace the development of these two bloggers’ associations, and show how they are related both to oppositional politics as well as to factional politics within BN. For the latter, the role of journalists and political interference in the management of newspapers is highlighted."
This chapter draws upon extensive fieldwork1 to analyse the relatively recent phenomenon of Malay... more This chapter draws upon extensive fieldwork1 to analyse the relatively recent phenomenon of Malaysian “Lifestyle” bloggers writing paid “advertorials,” and looks at potential consequences in terms of the underlying practices and values of blog- ging. Personal bloggers, from which the Lifestyle genre emanates, are a category underrepresented in academic studies, despite constituting the majority of bloggers (Cenite, Detenber, Koh, Lim, and Ng, 2009, p. 589), and the monetization of blogs is even less examined. By examining the objective relations that underlie the par- ticular social positioning of bloggers, and those economic structures in operation which enable the process of monetization, we unpack the notion of the Lifestyle blog as an increasingly common, explanatory class in the wider practices of blog- ging in Malaysia. We understand the class not as something given, but as some- thing constituted, or to be done, via networks and discursive activity.
Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Conference, Jul 9, 2009
As part of an ongoing PhD anthropology thesis on the monetisation of blogs inMalaysia,the researc... more As part of an ongoing PhD anthropology thesis on the monetisation of blogs inMalaysia,the researcher has used a blog (www.julianhopkins.net) as a means of establishing a presence in the field,to record fieldwork observations and to elicit participation from the bloggers themselves.
The public and dialogical context of the blogosphere presents novel methodological and ethical challenges for the anthropologist. Using the blog to record observations offers the possibility for further input from those being studied, improving the qualitative data and reducing the tendency of the researcher to inscribe his own interpretations on observed practices.
As part of the participant observation,the researcher draws upon a range of performative practices that develop cultural literacy and accumulate cultural capital relevant to the field of blogging –the ‘blogosphere’. However, if s/he is successful, this will result in a higher readership and thus increase the risk of inducing an observer effect that may recursively influence the bloggers who read the researcher’s blog.This is particularly possible in a rapidly changing context where attitudes and practices are less firmly established, and monetising blogs is still a contentious issue.
A case study of a ‘blogwar’ centred on a short-lived ‘hateblog’ that occurred mostly in the Singa... more A case study of a ‘blogwar’ centred on a short-lived ‘hateblog’ that occurred mostly in the Singaporean blogosphere, with some input from Malaysia. In this case, the renown of the protagonists, and the viciousness of the attack, combined to make the hateblog a ‘productive’ temporary locus of online discursive activity.
Theoretically, the approach taken shall draw upon Bourdieu’s concepts of field, social capital and practice; Bakhtin’s concept of dialogics; Appadurai’s concept of “commodity candidacy”, and discussions of value and authenticity. Miller & Slater, as well as Latour, are important in shaping the ethnographic approach to the internet, rooting online practices in offline contexts.
It is argued that through the posts and comments of those who condemn, support, or merely wish to be entertained by, the blogwar, it is possible to explore the underlying practices and norms of blogging.
Methodologically, the short timeframe enabled the gathering of most – possibly all – related blog posts and comments. These were subjected to content analysis, and the results analysed statistically and with social network analysis tools.
Keywords: blogs, social network analysis, content analysis, authenticity
Book Chapters by Julian Hopkins
Drawing upon a stage in the development of blogging in Malaysia from 2007 to 2009, this chapter o... more Drawing upon a stage in the development of blogging in Malaysia from 2007 to 2009, this chapter outlines the emergence of the lifestyle blog from the personal blog. Drawing upon actor-network theory and the conceptualisation of branding work as affective relational labour, it argues that the advertising market was able to integrate personal bloggers, and capitalise upon the ability to closely measure online activity, to restabilise the disruption caused by the 'voicy consumers'.
This chapter outlines the origins and meaning of the concept of affordances, presents some exampl... more This chapter outlines the origins and meaning of the concept of affordances, presents some examples, and discusses its relevance to studies of digital media. It suggests that the uniquely socially malleable nature of digital media, the variety of uses they engender, and the simultaneous awareness of the limitations of the mediated interaction that they allow explain the increased use of affordances in analyses of digital media.
Books by Julian Hopkins
Monetising the Dividual Self. The Emergence of the Lifestyle Blog and Influencers in Malaysia, 2019
This book is an anthropological exploration of the emergence in Malaysia of lifestyle bloggers, p... more This book is an anthropological exploration of the emergence in Malaysia of lifestyle bloggers, precursors to ‘microcelebrities’ or ‘influencers.’ Chapters that combine theoretical and empirical discussions are interspersed with shorter case study ‘thick descriptions’ of key events. Starting with a ‘blog war’, it tracks the transformation of ‘personal blogs’ that attracted readers with spontaneous and authentic accounts of everyday life into ‘lifestyle blogs’ that generate income through advertising and foreground consumerist lifestyles.
Using a synthesis of actor-network theory and the concepts of assemblage and affordances, it argues that lifestyle blogs are dialogically constituted between the blogger, the readers, and the blog itself. It challenges the assumption of a unitary self and proposes that lifestyle blogs can best be understood in terms of a ‘dividual self’.
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Papers by Julian Hopkins
It used ethnographic data from 'SoPo' (social-political) blogmeets in Malaysia to provide insight in the Malaysian goverments repressive approach to internet activity.
Click here for a free author copy from the publishers website (limited to fifty copies): http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/EG4Qdi5iBDuRTNGttXci/full
The advertising industry in Malaysia has responded to the destabilisation of the advertising market enabled by blog affordances by seeking to internalise the bloggers who represent “voicy consumers” in the “economy of qualities” (Michel Callon). Robert Foster has argued that surplus value is created for brands “through the everyday practices in whichconsumers use branded goods to create social relations and shared meanings and affect.” In effect, the diaristic practices of personal bloggers create both an opportunity for this process to take place and, for the more popular bloggers, a platform for advertisers to reach significant portions of a younger, more affluent, audience. By paying bloggers to incorporate brands in their blogposts, the advertisers seek to entangle the brand with the bloggers and their audience’s shared network of meaning, or dynamic assemblage.
While these findings are based on the Malaysian context, they have particular relevance for Singaporean blogging, as well as potential relevance for blogging worldwide, which has seen an increased interest in blogs as an advertising platform embedded in local and contextualised markets.
Each of the cases highlights particular ‘blog affordances’, a concept used to parse the potentials and limitations of blogs and other social media with regards to state hegemonic control through media ownership. In addition, an adapted concept of ’extended parasocial relations’ is proposed in relation to Najib’s blog and social media presence. Overall, these cases demonstrate the continuity and complementarity of on- and offline activities, which form a relatively stabilised assemblage of political activity.
This paper traces the development of an association of bloggers – All-Blogs – from 2007 through to its replacement by Blog House Malaysia in 2010. Using material drawn from media reports and from a long term ethnographic study of blogging in Malaysia, this paper will trace the development of these two bloggers’ associations, and show how they are related both to oppositional politics as well as to factional politics within BN. For the latter, the role of journalists and political interference in the management of newspapers is highlighted."
The public and dialogical context of the blogosphere presents novel methodological and ethical challenges for the anthropologist. Using the blog to record observations offers the possibility for further input from those being studied, improving the qualitative data and reducing the tendency of the researcher to inscribe his own interpretations on observed practices.
As part of the participant observation,the researcher draws upon a range of performative practices that develop cultural literacy and accumulate cultural capital relevant to the field of blogging –the ‘blogosphere’. However, if s/he is successful, this will result in a higher readership and thus increase the risk of inducing an observer effect that may recursively influence the bloggers who read the researcher’s blog.This is particularly possible in a rapidly changing context where attitudes and practices are less firmly established, and monetising blogs is still a contentious issue.
Theoretically, the approach taken shall draw upon Bourdieu’s concepts of field, social capital and practice; Bakhtin’s concept of dialogics; Appadurai’s concept of “commodity candidacy”, and discussions of value and authenticity. Miller & Slater, as well as Latour, are important in shaping the ethnographic approach to the internet, rooting online practices in offline contexts.
It is argued that through the posts and comments of those who condemn, support, or merely wish to be entertained by, the blogwar, it is possible to explore the underlying practices and norms of blogging.
Methodologically, the short timeframe enabled the gathering of most – possibly all – related blog posts and comments. These were subjected to content analysis, and the results analysed statistically and with social network analysis tools.
Keywords: blogs, social network analysis, content analysis, authenticity
Book Chapters by Julian Hopkins
Books by Julian Hopkins
Using a synthesis of actor-network theory and the concepts of assemblage and affordances, it argues that lifestyle blogs are dialogically constituted between the blogger, the readers, and the blog itself. It challenges the assumption of a unitary self and proposes that lifestyle blogs can best be understood in terms of a ‘dividual self’.
It used ethnographic data from 'SoPo' (social-political) blogmeets in Malaysia to provide insight in the Malaysian goverments repressive approach to internet activity.
Click here for a free author copy from the publishers website (limited to fifty copies): http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/EG4Qdi5iBDuRTNGttXci/full
The advertising industry in Malaysia has responded to the destabilisation of the advertising market enabled by blog affordances by seeking to internalise the bloggers who represent “voicy consumers” in the “economy of qualities” (Michel Callon). Robert Foster has argued that surplus value is created for brands “through the everyday practices in whichconsumers use branded goods to create social relations and shared meanings and affect.” In effect, the diaristic practices of personal bloggers create both an opportunity for this process to take place and, for the more popular bloggers, a platform for advertisers to reach significant portions of a younger, more affluent, audience. By paying bloggers to incorporate brands in their blogposts, the advertisers seek to entangle the brand with the bloggers and their audience’s shared network of meaning, or dynamic assemblage.
While these findings are based on the Malaysian context, they have particular relevance for Singaporean blogging, as well as potential relevance for blogging worldwide, which has seen an increased interest in blogs as an advertising platform embedded in local and contextualised markets.
Each of the cases highlights particular ‘blog affordances’, a concept used to parse the potentials and limitations of blogs and other social media with regards to state hegemonic control through media ownership. In addition, an adapted concept of ’extended parasocial relations’ is proposed in relation to Najib’s blog and social media presence. Overall, these cases demonstrate the continuity and complementarity of on- and offline activities, which form a relatively stabilised assemblage of political activity.
This paper traces the development of an association of bloggers – All-Blogs – from 2007 through to its replacement by Blog House Malaysia in 2010. Using material drawn from media reports and from a long term ethnographic study of blogging in Malaysia, this paper will trace the development of these two bloggers’ associations, and show how they are related both to oppositional politics as well as to factional politics within BN. For the latter, the role of journalists and political interference in the management of newspapers is highlighted."
The public and dialogical context of the blogosphere presents novel methodological and ethical challenges for the anthropologist. Using the blog to record observations offers the possibility for further input from those being studied, improving the qualitative data and reducing the tendency of the researcher to inscribe his own interpretations on observed practices.
As part of the participant observation,the researcher draws upon a range of performative practices that develop cultural literacy and accumulate cultural capital relevant to the field of blogging –the ‘blogosphere’. However, if s/he is successful, this will result in a higher readership and thus increase the risk of inducing an observer effect that may recursively influence the bloggers who read the researcher’s blog.This is particularly possible in a rapidly changing context where attitudes and practices are less firmly established, and monetising blogs is still a contentious issue.
Theoretically, the approach taken shall draw upon Bourdieu’s concepts of field, social capital and practice; Bakhtin’s concept of dialogics; Appadurai’s concept of “commodity candidacy”, and discussions of value and authenticity. Miller & Slater, as well as Latour, are important in shaping the ethnographic approach to the internet, rooting online practices in offline contexts.
It is argued that through the posts and comments of those who condemn, support, or merely wish to be entertained by, the blogwar, it is possible to explore the underlying practices and norms of blogging.
Methodologically, the short timeframe enabled the gathering of most – possibly all – related blog posts and comments. These were subjected to content analysis, and the results analysed statistically and with social network analysis tools.
Keywords: blogs, social network analysis, content analysis, authenticity
Using a synthesis of actor-network theory and the concepts of assemblage and affordances, it argues that lifestyle blogs are dialogically constituted between the blogger, the readers, and the blog itself. It challenges the assumption of a unitary self and proposes that lifestyle blogs can best be understood in terms of a ‘dividual self’.