A Conversation at Blogher '06: Stephanie Hendrick

One of two really interesting conversations I had at Blogher '06 was with Stephanie Hendrick, an American Ph.D. student in Umeå, Sweden. She was on a panel--Business Blog Case Studies--where she appeared to have been placed entirely at random, or even in a spirit of utter perversity. The other folks, sensibly enough, talked about businesses and blogs, while Stephanie talked about her research into issues such as blogs with fictional characters and linguistic forensics. I was riveted. This is the kind of stuff I just love.

One of her key points considered a strange inverse relationship between identity and reputation and is pictured here--drawn, actually, by Stephanie. Its primary statement is this: the more reticent you are, the more your identity is a function of your reputation; the more disclosing you are, the more your reputation is a function of your identity.

Here's a thought: if your entire presentation of identity is fictitious--a lie or a little piece of fictional storytelling--then, according to the rule above, your reputation is your only identity; you have no identity whatsoever except for what is reflected in the beliefs of others.

I think. Or not. I don't know. Maybe it's one of those om padme hum or sound of one hand clapping kinds of things, an idea that you pretty much meditate on. But it's relevant to a specific case she researched.

She used the analytical tools of forensic linguistics to investigate the identity of a blogger--apparently, according to his blog, a European, middle-aged man. Using the appropriate software, she analyzed the language patterns manifested in the blog, discovered the most distinctive ones, and then used Google to search for other blogs with those distinctive patterns. She found one, out of all Google searches, one, apparently the blog of a young woman undergraduate at Brown University. She believes the two bloggers to be the same person, but she's not sure which is the real identity.

At any rate, we talked and talked after the panel about these and other issues, much to my delight.

Stephanie Hendrick can be found online--blog and some research material, among other things, here. Any errors in my descriptions of what she's doing are, of course, mine.

Comments

[Elisa Camahort]

"where she appeared to have been placed entirely at random, or even in a spirit of utter perversity."

Um, no. This was relevant due to the issue of corporate blogs involving characters or ghostwriting. And how often they're "outed" for such behaviors.

And because Stephanie needed to be able to have an invite to present her paper to get *funding* to come from Sweden for the conference, so I'm pretty sure she was happy to be placed in the session, even if she did take it in a somewhat unexpected direction :)

[Tom Maddox]

Elisa--one of Blogher 06's organizers and show runners--gives me a deserved "um, no."

Well, okay, strictly speaking, but the cognitive dissonance in her presentation, in comparison to the others, was major--which I entirely enjoyed. I mean, for me it was a feature, not a bug. And I'm delighted that Stephanie got funding, whatever the panel.

Maybe I'm inclined to see the imp of the perverse even when he (she?) isn't there.

[Elisa Camahort]

"The imp of perverse"

Now *that* I like! I decree that will be my next nickname!

[dthomasmaddox]

That's "imp of *the* perverse," Elisa, from a Poe story--unless, of course, you're just being perverse, in which case, never mind. Should we address you as Ms. Perverse, Ms. Imp, or ...?