My Blog is My Frame: The Unwritten Rules of the Blogosphere and How They Frame and Fracture Content

Elisabeth Hanscombe

pages: 116-123
First published online: 09 November 2017
Version: 09 November 2017

ABSTRACT
The practice of blogging challenges us to consider notions of multiple identities. Within the blogosphere these multiple identities can at times clash one with one another and more particularly with certain perspectives of our external public identity, particularly for professionals in specific areas of endeavour, including those in academia and in the psychological helping profession. I straddle these two worlds. My paper seeks therefore to address issues of identity that arise when one’s differing public and private selves cross over through sometimes mutually exclusive spheres, for instance that of the psychoanalytic psychotherapist and that of the blogger. I keep a blog like a guilty secret, one I share only with my literary friends. I hide the knowledge from my psychoanalytic colleagues for fear of censure. This paper seeks to explore conflicts that arise internally within the blogosphere in relation to these multiple identities and the clashes between one’s identity as a blogger and the demands for personal privacy inherent in certain professions, such as in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Key words: Blogosphere, Identity, Private self, Guilty secret, Psychotherapy.