What’s all this blogging frenzy all about anyway? I decided to review Huge Hewitt’s book in an attempt to find out…

Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation that’s Changing Your World

 

Huge Hewitt. Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation that’s Changing Your World. California: Thomas Nelson, Inc, 2005. 225 pages. $14.99 (paper).

Blogs – the latest development in knowledge acquisition and citizen participation; the first media platform to fully converge traditional news mediums; and yet another creation in the industry to have caused such mixed views regarding it’s power within society. A vital starting point to any exploration into the media is the consideration of existing mediums. Hugh Hewitt’s attempt to explain the current power shift entitled ‘Blog: Understanding the Information Reformations that’s Changing your World’ is no exception. Through recognition of media dependence on one another, it becomes apparent that each outlet serves a common purpose – to enhance the lives of the human race through the dissemination of information. Hewitt’s attempt to explain the structural shift in the consumption of news aims to make sense of media power within society. In doing so, he applies a technological utopian approach which dominates his arguments.

The hollowing out of the old media and the old information infrastructure is pretty much complete, its credibility collapse already certain and nearly accomplished, and in its place a wholly new geography of power and influence. (p. XII)

Such exerts are common throughout the text, and crystallise Hewitt’s position on citizen journalism – that it has essentially eradicated ‘old media’.

In noting in an early chapter that “the changes sweeping through the news media are vast and tremendously disruptive of old hierarchies,” Hewitt makes a prominent point that traditional mediums have been forced to adapt to the new outlet. Blogs have essentially pushed ‘old’ media from the forefront for a limited period of time while they thrust themselves upon the information society. It is apparent however that recognition will be short-lived. The utopian stance assumed by the author is one which grossly exaggerates the power and dominance of blogging as a media outlet. The introduction of any new medium disrupts the hierarchy and balance of power within the information society upon it’s arrival. And just as video didn’t kill the radio star, blogs don’t pose much of a sustained threat to traditional mediums.

As has been seen many a time before with various new media creations, such as the invention of radio in the late 1800s, a paradigm shift has presented itself as a result of the emergence of blogging. However, in keeping with the norm, the balance of power will be consequently restored to allow new mediums to operate in unison with all the others – contributing to the dissemination of information within society. Hewitt sets out his analysis of the influence of citizen journalism by over-emphasising the projected effect of the blogosphere on society – an emphasis which casts doubt upon the findings and examinations which follow. A less superlative approach would have made for a far more realistic and credible account of just how the blogosphere is impacting the world.

An obvious downfall of the text is that it pays exclusive attention to the political blogosphere. Any interested scholar would likely deem the work as insufficient in presenting comprehensive coverage of the vast subject area. In failing to include examples of how blogs can be utilised in alternative ways (such as personal diaries, profiles or as journalistic archives), Hewitt consequently ignores a major use of the outlet. However, the book does offer thorough examination of the influence of political blogging. Although all the examples are American and cater to a predominantly American audience, Hewitt references many major political events. Thus, the text would be of interest to academics and students of political science and similar fields worldwide. However, Hewitt quickly develops a tendency to reference himself excessively throughout the book, which makes for tedious reading.

The conclusion, not surprisingly entitled ‘The Inevitability of Dominance’, offers some insightful closing remarks concerning prominent dangers surrounding the issue of blogging. However, Hewitt bypasses a major contention common to many other scholarly texts in the field. Joke Hermes for example, in his article ‘Citizenship in the Age of the Internet’, centres his argument that citizen journalism contributes to a Habermasian Public Sphere around the credibility of contributing sources. Despite the recognition that blogs are giving individuals power within the marketplace of ideas, Hewitt avoids the need for scepticism altogether. The sheer volume of participants and the range of voices accumulated by certain blogs do in fact endanger the public as highlighted by Hermes. To ascertain that “trust drives everything” trivialises the potential harm blogs can cause. In this instance, Hewitt is somewhat patronising in the sense that he makes a clear assumption that ignorance is sufficient in preventing threats to national security for example. This point alone encompasses the general stance and tone of the text – one which should be consulted only for specific reference to political blogging and not for a comprehensive, detailed analysis of the impact of blogging in our diverse and highly dynamic society.

Works Cited

Hermes, J. (2006) ‘Citizenship in the Age of the Internet’, European Journal of Communication, ‘Citizenship in the Age of the Internet’ Vol. 21 (Issue 3).

I catch up with acclaimed American author to get her take on coming out, liberalism and lesbian nuns.

It’s not every day you’re beckoned out of the pouring rain and into the warm company of someone you admire most in the world. And it’s certainly not every day, in midst of your subtle embarrassment and thoughts of, ‘God, how could I have been so stupid?’ you realise this person is not the intimidating super-human you had somehow managed to conjure up in your head. She is, in fact, exactly how you had always imagined her to be – sweet, welcoming, and eager to share stories of her life with you.

It’s somewhat of a privilege to be sat down beside Rosemary Keefe (formerly Curb), author of Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence, (an anthology of experiences from former servants of God) 22 years after it made such an overwhelming impact upon its first publication in the U.S.

“I still get letters from people who have just discovered the book,” she says, with a notable tone of excitement. Understandable, considering the array of silences the book managed to shatter back then, despite the political climate of the mid 80’s.

“This is not just a book about lesbian nuns,” she assures me. “This is a book about breaking silence about women’s lives. We are all different, we are very complex and there is a tendency in popular culture to put women in categories: the bad girls, the good girls. The Madonna-whore split.”

No surprise than that Keefe is an author who, along with co-editor Nancy Manahan, stirred up political outrage, hurled religious leaders form their comfort zones and changed so many women’s lives for the better. Amongst all the feelings of respect and sheer thankfulness, I found myself not begin able to focus on anything other than that glaring similarities between the stories of the women in Lesbian Nuns and the lives of many men and women in Edinburgh and beyond today.

This striking comparison over time could explain why the book was so overwhelmingly successful. The stories offer universal insight and emotion to the extent to which they become applicable to other different, yet similar situations years down the line.

“The fact that the women whose stories appear in this book have been in religious communities simply isolates a particular sector of the population” Keefe explains.

“But the idea of struggling to come to an identity or to bring what maybe the world at large perceives as contradictory identities together, is a struggle that all kinds of people have in many, many different ways.”

“If, in this pantheon of good versus bad women, the patriarchy said, ‘well lesbians are bad and nuns are good’, I am here to tell you that the good girls and the bad girls are the same girls,” she continues. “And this is true not just of us, but of women in general. We are complex. And multi-faceted. And can’t be pigeonholed into a stereotype.”

The people flickering frantically through the pages of Lesbian Nuns this year may not be living in convents, but may be members of religious communities. Some may never have to worry about being denied a civil union with their partner, but many still do. And although today they may not face expulsion from the institutions in which they are members, they risk facing the same isolation and hostile treatment if they do decide to come out as gay or lesbian.

“At what price do you stay in the closet?” Keefe asks. “The closet is so stuffy and so painful.”

“I have observed people who have struggled to hide that piece of themselves. It’s like a part of their body and their soul just isn’t working, and they are in great pain,” she comments, with such an air of sensitivity and love.

“And when they finally come out, they may lose some people, and that is always the great fear. Well, who’s going to reject me? And they will be rejected, by people who are afraid, and that’s an unfortunate loss. But they come into a consciousness of their own true self and that is a much greater gain I think.”

While in Scotland we pride ourselves for our friendliness and attitudes towards diverse communities, Keefe believes it will take more for people to receive the acceptance and tolerance they crave.

“I think it’s going to take more and more people coming out, particularly people in positions of authority and respect,” she offers, having quite suitably occupied the position of Head of English at Missouri State University-Springfield. “As long as a large number of people stay in the closet and keep it hidden, then being hidden in the closet is the norm, and it is unusual for someone to come out.”

“Therefore we perpetuate the idea that one should not talk about this, and therefore we perpetuate for our potential straight friends and allies the lie about who we really are,” she continues, allowing for time to once again reflect back upon her ground-breaking book.

Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence does more than merely document a collection of memoirs from repressed women in religious communities dating back to the 50s. It is a tool of expression, progression and truth. A tool which can be utilised by man and women alike, in the search for equality for all.

“Now as an English professor I believe that being able to transform silence, and I’m quoting Audre Lorde now who is one of my big role models, ‘to transform silence into language is a great liberation’, for anyone, and that’s what telling the stories in Lesbian Nuns does for the women who wrote them,” Keefe says.

Currently in her last year of teaching, Keefe is due to retire this month. But she will continue to make vast contributions to the fight for social justice in many effective ways. And in continuing to transform taboo into debate, this is a woman who can truly break the silence.