Research Paper

Amanda Hoffstrom Atypical voices: Your Voices Your Voices—Minnesota Community blogs Community URL: http://www.startribune.com/yourvoices/ Digital Hub URL: http://yourvoicesresearch.blogspot.com/ Digital Hub elements: 1. Analytical blog posts 2. Blogger/editor interviews 3. Contextual Jing video

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When we were told to pick an online community to study, it took me awhile to think of what I wanted to do. At first, I thought about doing my project on a LOST fan forum or some kind of social networking site, like Twitter. However, once I saw the Your Voices – Minnesota Community blog facilitated and hosted by the Star Tribune, I knew it was what I would find most interesting. Your Voices is a collaborative blog space that brings together Minnesotans from different backgrounds to discuss current events and public issues. Your Voices is “a home for lively conversations and respectful debates,” according to the site.1 Even though I've been more engrossed in Madison news during my time at college, as a Minnesota native, I still read the Star Tribune and was introduced to the community through the newspaper's Web site. I think the community is especially interesting because it is a traditional journalism site that hosts non-journalists' blogs. As a journalism major with a print emphasis, I found the Your Voices community a fascinating case study of citizen participation in news, pop culture and local events. It was the first fuse of identifiable “citizen journalism” and traditional media I had seen. I knew I had to learn more about the function, background and mission of the voices. About Your Voices On the surface, the blog is really basic. There are 35 bloggers who post individually to the community. Each post is tagged to a person's “profile,” so if you click on their photo, you are 1 “More about your voices.” Accessed May 9, 2009 from http://www.startribune.com/yourvoices/

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linked to a list of all the items they've posted. There are no anonymous posts. The profile photos identify the bloggers by name, title or community expertise, and links to further background information. Some profiles offer links to other blogs, Twitter accounts, company and organization Web sites, among other digital elements. Through observing some of the bloggers' backgrounds and posts, it is very easy to see how their background and expertise might influence what they write about. For example, posts by Kim Carlson have included “Go Green to Feel Groovy” and “What Color is Your Life.” Carlson is cited as a green business expert on the blog, so it makes sense that her posts would be about green lifestyle issues.2 Seth Stohs' posts have included “Top 15 Baseball Movies” and “Why the Vikings??” And Stohs is labeled as a sports blogger in the community, though he has branched out a bit to include posts about the ongoing Senate race in Minnesota.3 For the most part, the blogs are written in first person, often based on personal experiences that may relate to a current event. In a way, these bloggers appear as columnists. It was important for me to go beyond my observations of the blogs and ask questions of the individuals at the Star Tribune who influenced the community's creation. My best option to learn more about the community was to ask the Star Tribune facilitator through the e-mail address, [email protected], that was listed online. About two days after I sent an email with questions, I received a response from Rhonda Prast, the Team Leader of Projects and Planning for StarTribune.com that said she was the editor in charge of the Your Voices community and asked for more time to respond. Two days after I received the initial e-mail from Prast, she sent a second e-mail with thorough responses to the following background questions:

2 Kim Carlson's profile. Star Tribune. http://tinyurl.com/qk6336 3 Seth Stohs' profile. Star Tribune. http://tinyurl.com/r4345l

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• • •

How did the Your Voices community start? What is the goal of the community? Were bloggers asked to join by editors at the Star Tribune, or was there some kind of application process? What do you think are the benefits of having this kind of community on a newspaper Web site? Do you see the community as an important addition to traditional journalism/newspapers? My correspondence with Prast gave me a unique glimpse at the process of picking the

bloggers. Your Voices started as an idea pitched by the managing editor, Rene Sanchez, and launched in December 2008. Prast said “the goal is to broaden the sampling of commentary and opinions on [the Star Tribune] site from more members of the Twin Cities community.”4 The newspaper “modeled it after other blogs from other media sites: Huffington Post, NJ Voices at the Star Ledger and Comment is Free in the U.K.,” Prast said. Each of the 35 Your Voices bloggers were invited to join the group. “I went after notable folks in the community, leaders, people with a certain level of accomplishment, other local bloggers,” she said.5 According to Prast, bloggers are still being recruited, and traffic to the community is growing monthly. In terms of the community adding an important component to a traditional journalism site, Prast said the more interaction the paper has with its external community, the better. “This blog builds on that interaction and I think we host some voices and opinions on a regular basis that we would not hear from otherwise. We've tried hard to recruit more conservative voices especially. Minnesota has a strong liberal bent and we want to be balanced with our commentary,” she said.6 I noticed early in my observations of the site that comments are allowed on posts, but are 4 R. Prast, personal communication, April 30, 2009 5 R. Prast, personal communication, April 30, 2009. 6 Ibid.

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less transparent than the named, pictured, associated bloggers. Not only do most of the commenters use screen names, but their comments “are moderated and will appear after review by editors,” according to the site.7 I thought this odd since the community, as noted earlier, aims for “lively conversations and respectful debates.”8 Though it is spelled out that comments are moderated, I wondered if it was ethical to filter comments in a community that promotes diverse opinions. Methodology The Your Voices community is unique in that the bloggers often do not change. There may be a few who are added to the community each month, but from my observations, the amount of voices is consistent. With that in mind, I turned to the bloggers to give me inside information on their participation. I reached out to the Your Voices bloggers for which I could easily find e-mail addresses—those who have their contact information readily available online through their companies, organizations or colleges. I wanted to know as much as I could about the community, so I included background questions with some that I considered ethical gray areas. Aside from soliciting the bloggers' opinions on the controlled comments, I wanted to know whether they thought their views could be considered a conflict of interest with their respective employers or organizations, or if they thought they could or should be seen as separate personal views. I also wanted to know the following information from the bloggers: • • • •

Do you get paid to post? How often do you post? Are you given specific topics to blog about? What do you think are the benefits of posting? Do you blog outside of the Your Voices blog? If not, why did you want to join this

7 “More about your voices.” Accessed May 9, 2009 from http://www.startribune.com/yourvoices/ 8 Ibid.

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• •

blogging community? Do you see the community as an important addition to traditional journalism/newspapers?** What do you think makes you unique from the other bloggers?**

Research findings: Differing opinions I received additional background information from the seven bloggers I contacted, including the fact that the bloggers do not get paid for their posts. If they were paid, I would have considered it unethical because it is too easy to push an agenda through posts, as student Timothy DenHerder Thomas illustrated in his e-mail: “I use posting to get the word out about action and issues that I'm involved in around climate and energy.”9 Most of the bloggers said they try to post at least once a week and are not usually given specific topics to blog about. “Periodically, the editors ask us to respond to an event or an idea, but by and large, we're on our own,” said Jon Commers, founder and principal of Donjek, Incorporated, a financial planning firm.10 The bloggers and Rhonda Prast told me blog posts are not edited, but Prast said she does “go in and occasionally fix a misspelled name or word that stands out—like a misspelling in a headline.” So, if posts are not moderated, why are the comments? I asked Prast. “We do moderate comments—we agreed to do this before the blog started because we did not want to subject our bloggers to nasty and vicious comments. That does not mean I censor comments that strongly disagree with a blogger's point of view, but we don't want to let anonymous comments about a person's appearance go through, or name-calling etc. We moderate the comments Monday through Friday mostly … Comments not appropriate: gratuitous name-calling, racial slurs, profanity, sexist comments, personal attacks, often things not on point to the topic.”11

**

Note: Questions were not asked of every blogger 9 T. DenHerder Thomas, personal communication, April 26, 2009 10 J. Commers, personal communication, April 29, 2009 11 R. Prast, personal communication, April 30, 2009

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I posed the following comment-related question to the bloggers: Do you think more people would post comments if they weren't approved before being published? The bloggers had mixed views. Commers said, “I'm not sure—but I think some moderation is a reasonable thing for a major metro paper. Even with the moderation, there are some pretty irresponsible comments.”12 Blogger Kim Carlson had a similar view: “The moderated component doesn't seem to stop anyone from saying what they want. I am occasionally surprised at the mean spiritedness of some of the comments … I think comments are of value when they are respectful, thoughtful and of a different opinion from mine.”13 Ernest Comer III, a senior at the University of Minnesota, and the president of PRISM on campus, said he thought there is “always more incentive to speak when you know you won’t be censored” and Ciceron CEO Andrew Eklund said he thinks the moderated comments “limits the openness of the community.”14 Sports blogger Seth Stohs said he is “definitely not a fan of the moderation. I absolutely believe more people would post comments if they didn't have to go through that process. If they are only moderated a few times each day, there is no real interaction. There isn't a good opportunity for debate and discussion.”15 Comments to the blogs vary in number, depending on the author and topic. The last time I looked, a post “Road Rage and Bicyclists” had 98 comments.16 Another blog titled “Opulence and Poverty” from the same blogger only had 2 comments.17 Some of the posts don't get any comments. I think this is typical of most articles posted online—some will generate a large response, others do not. 12 13 14 15 16 17

J. Commers, personal communication, April 29, 2009 K. Carlson, personal communication, April 29, 2009 E. Comer III, personal communication, April 30, 2009; A. Eklund, personal communication, April 26, 2009 S. Stohs, personal communication, April 27, 2009 Winge, Kevin. “Road Rage and Bicyclists.” Accessed May 11, 2009. http://tinyurl.com/q8f465 Winge, Kevin. “Opulence and Poverty.” Accessed May 11, 2009. http://tinyurl.com/pl6swg

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The other ethical gray area I posed for the bloggers was the idea of professional conflicts. Because each blogger is named in connection with their standing in the community, I asked these questions: Do you think there are any professional conflicts to your posting? In other words, do you think the views expressed in your posts should be seen separately from the views of your employer? Why or why not? Do you think readers can differentiate between the two views? Again, the bloggers had differing opinions. Some, including Carlson and Commers, are selfemployed and used that as their answer. Eklund said, “I'm fairly consistent in my out-spokenness. :) I'm as tough on people and the industry in Your Voices as I am in my own writings. I understand that people seldom differentiate between what's said professionally and personally, so I try and be consistent at all times.”18 I think DenHerder Thomas, Stohs and and Comer III were confused by my question, because each answered as if the Star Tribune was their employer.19 Kevin Winge, the executive director of Open Arms of Minnesota, was very candid in his response: “Yes, I believe there are professional conflicts to my postings. It is a challenging line to walk between that as an individual and that of my role as a director of a nonprofit. And there are conflicts. In my role of nonprofit director, I strive to be bipartisan. Of course I have partisan opinions. Sometimes I share those opinions on Your Voices, but sometimes my postings are not as strong as they would be if I didn't take the nonprofit I work for into account. At the same time, I realize that my role of director of a nonprofit is—at least partially—what has given me a platform in this community in the first place. The general reader of Your Voices do not differentiate—in my opinion—between the two views. Based on what people have said to me, they see see my blogging for the Strib the same as my professional role.”20 18 A. Eklund, personal communication, April 26, 2009 19 T. DenHerder Thomas, personal communication, April 26; S. Stohs, personal communication, April 27, 2009 20 K. Winge, personal communication, April 27, 2009

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Any professional conflicts must be dealt with internally, because this community clearly values transparency for its bloggers, which is why I believe they are named, pictured and given a title. The transparency gives their views credibility—another traditional news value. Research findings: Unique voices? The blog brings together multiple voices in a way that did not exist one year ago on the Star Tribune Web site. Currently, the community has 15 females and 20 males. The bloggers further break into one or several categories, including college students, CEOs and politicians. There are three college students, four CEOs, two former political affiliates, five artists and four sports affiliates, among others.21 All, from what I can tell are well educated. These distinctions limit participation, however. In observing the community, I can say each blogger has some kind of standing in the "real world" Minnesota community. It's not a free for all in terms of who can post. The community is limited because the only way to become a member of the community is through the approval of the Star Tribune. In selecting bloggers, Rhonda Prast and other Star Tribune editors exhibit a mode of control that blocks other voices from getting into the community. To help understand why some of the bloggers were chosen over possible others, I asked the bloggers what they think makes them unique from the other bloggers. DenHerder Thomas said he is unique “because [he is] a student activist building a career creating climate and energy solutions by creating local economic opportunities through clean energy and energy efficiency at the community level.”22 DenHerder is a senior at Macalester College in St. Paul and a member of many local and national environmental groups. Commers, the founder and principal of Donjek, Incorporated, said he is “the private-sector guy interested in public-sector issues,” and likes to 21 “Meet the 'voices'” Digital hub post. http://yourvoicesresearch.blogspot.com/2009/04/meet-bloggers.html 22 T. DenHerder Thomas, personal communication, April 26, 2009

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think he posts on a range of issues. “We have a number of bloggers who are single-issue folks: Everything comes back to that one issue in each of their posts. I would find that stifling” Commers said.23 Comer III, another college senior, said “I’m me. I bring my own experiences and beliefs to the table just like everyone else who blogs. No two people ever have the same thing to say about anything. They might pretend they do but there is always something each individual can add or change about what is to be said on any given subject.”24 The rest of the bloggers I interviewed said they were unique because they brought a different twist to their area of expertise. Carlson, the green expert, said “my topic and the way I express the information from my own personal experience is unique. I try to make green living accessible and easy so that it appeals to the largest group of people.”25 Sports blogger Stohs said “As a sports blogger, I can write on topics from the eye of a kid, a high school player, a college player, a starter, a bench warmer, a coach, an umpire, and several other perspectives. I don't claim to have all of the answers, but I do enjoy showing people that there are many ways to think, and that there doesn't have to be a right or wrong ... even in sports.”26 Winge, the executive director of Open Arms of Minnesota, said “I don't know that I am unique. I assume, though never had a conversation with the Strib about this, that one of the reasons I was asked to join Your Voices was to bring a gay perspective to some issues.” Winge added that he is most pleased with some of his postings that have a LGBT angle to them.27 Though these particular voices are unique, as are the other bloggers I did not interview, 23 24 25 26 27

J. Commers, personal communication, April 29, 2009 E. Comer III, personal communication, April 30, 2009 K. Carlson, personal communication, April 29, 2009 S. Stohs, personal communication, April 27, 2009 K. Winge, personal communication, April 27, 2009

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certain biases still exist in the community, including education level and computer/Internet access. Prast said she approached “notable” individuals in the community to write for the blogs. In some ways that form of approval and the digital divide still create uniformity in the virtual community that prohibits a true sense of diversity. To balance any biases or possible misrepresentation of Twin Cities' groups in the Your Voices community, I think free comments should be allowed. Currently, another mode of control—filtering—potentially blocks the remaining voices in the external community from getting in. A respectful debate is one of the goals of the Your Voices community, but I think these modes of control come close to limiting the impact of any debates. -------------The Your Voices – Minnesota Community blogs are an important case study in citizen journalism. The bloggers are not reporters and do not get paid as such, but Your Voices offers a forum for non-journalists on a site that “strives for accuracy” and represents other values of traditional journalism.28 I'm not implying that the Your Voices posts aren't accurate, but without an editor verifying information, the concept of accuracy becomes a bit shaky. Your Voices is supposed to offer the readers of the Star Tribune a greater number of community opinions, which it does well. But, through observation and interviews, I can see that there are voices left out of the community. For one, there are no female college students compared with the three male student contributors. Having been in a position of leadership in college, I know there are plenty of outstanding female leaders at Minnesota colleges. Other groups I can think of that are missing: health care professionals, historians and filmmakers. The community is growing each month, so maybe these groups will become included at some point. Whether or not communities of this 28 “StarTribune.com Terms of Use” Accessed on May 10 from http://www.startribune.com/help/11484216.html

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nature are added to newspapers in the future, I think this particular experiment will continue to grow and surprise the bloggers and editors who created it because there is value to reading atypical voices.

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