Creation and Validation of the Personal Blogging Style Scale

Introduction

Styles have been used in psychology to describe how an individual experiences the world. For example, a cognitive style describes an individual's thinking approach when processing information, while an attributional style describes how individuals perceive and explain life events. Rather than focus on why an individual acts, a style focuses on how an individual interacts with the environment. Styles differ from motivations, which are defined as psychological features that give purpose and direction to behavior. ¹ Motivations exist prior to, and often result in actions toward, a desired goal, and consequently shape the behavior of individuals. While motivations are important in explaining the impetus for human actions, styles are useful in describing the typical ways an individual experiences these actions. Although there is often some overlap between motivation and style (why I do something and how I experience it may be related), these constructs can also be independent of each other.

Blogs, or online diaries, are websites containing an archived series of reverse chronological items of content posted by the author. ² Blogs exist on several different types of Web sites (social networking sites, blog-specific Web sites, corporate Web sites, etc.), and accordingly, blog styles can vary widely from being impersonal and professional to being informal and chatty. ³ There has been research on the antecedents of blogging^2,4,5 and its effects,^6,7 but very little quantitative research on different blogging styles. However, the manner in which bloggers interpret their experience of blogging might differ from their original intentions, as evidenced, for example, by the high rate of discontinued blogs, ⁸ suggesting the experience did not lead to the anticipated rewards. Additionally, the way a blog is experienced may influence outcomes for the author, for example, their level of social integration, friendship development, and psychological well-being.^6,7 Thus the ability to describe a blogger's personal style may be of benefit in providing a link or mediator between an individual's original motivations for blogging and subsequent psychosocial outcomes.

Blog usage generally fits well within a uses and gratifications framework, ⁹ whereby Internet use is postulated to satisfy needs. Motivations described in the literature include information gathering and dissemination, keeping up with trends, passing time, self-promotion, professional advancement, connecting with others, and expressing emotions.^2,4,5 Blogs have been described as helpful for learning, organizing ideas, and making sense of experiences.^10–12 By providing a space for venting emotions, blogs can be cathartic.^12–14 They also seem to serve a social purpose. Through open dialogue using commenting and track-back features, blogs open themselves up to dimensions of social support, friendship, and positive interaction,^13,15 and blogging appears to improve an individual's sense of satisfaction with their friendships and their sense of closeness with peers.^6,7

Despite most blog literature describing mainly positive interactions and experiences in the blogosphere, ¹⁶ there are opportunities for an individual to experience increased feelings of isolation and alienation through personal attack, or indeed from lack of acknowledgment. An author may receive twenty positive comments but focus on a few negative ones. In this way, motivations and benefits of blogging are insufficient to describe the blogging experience, as they do not capture all the dimensions of the personal experience. Bloggers' thinking styles may play a large role in the way they experience blogging, and any resulting positive or negative consequences. There is thus a need to examine how different bloggers interpret the experience of blogging.

The aim of the present study was to develop a measure of the ways in which individuals experience and interpret their blogs—a Personal Blogging Style Scale (PBSS), focusing mainly on the social/communication and emotional aspects of the medium. A list of 25 potential items (see Table 1) was created from some of the experiential aspects reported in the literature. For example, discussion of the therapeutic aspects of blogging in Nardi et al.'s ¹² qualitative study of bloggers' experiences led to the development of items such as “When I'm upset, blogging helps ease my distress.” As well, the writings of Doctorow ¹¹ and Blood ¹⁰ on blogger cognitions provided ideas for generating items such as “I think about how my readers will react to a blog entry while I'm writing it” and “My blog has helped me to organize my thoughts.”

Participant responses to the items were factor analyzed, scales developed, reliabilities assessed, and relationships with other scales analyzed to establish validity. Construct validity was assessed through testing of predictions that (a) the tendency to use more socially oriented styles of blogging would correlate with measures of friendship quality and perceived social support, and (b) the tendency to use blogging styles characterized by efforts to use the blog to vent, cope with, and gain support for personal problems would correlate with the more general use of coping styles such as venting, seeking emotional and instrumental support, and active coping. The rationale behind these predicted relationships was that individuals would bring to their blogs a style of interaction that paralleled their offline persona. Additionally, relationships between blogging style, blog activity and readership, and psychological distress were explored, as were relationships between blogging style and a range of other coping strategies for which specific hypotheses could not be derived from past research or theory.

Methodology

Results

Discussion

The current study involved the development of a scale that assessed four distinct blogging styles. Each of these styles is described in turn. The Therapeutic Blogging subscale assessed a style that is open and expressive, focused on affective exchange and symptom relief, and more directed to the concerns of the blogger than the blog readers. Individuals scoring high on this subscale were less satisfied with their friendships; scored higher on depression, anxiety and stress; and endorsed numerous coping mechanisms employed to deal with stressors, including venting, positive reframing, seeking emotional and instrumental support, and acceptance. The profile of therapeutic bloggers suggests individuals who are emotionally distressed, in need of social support, have a strong need for personal comfort from others, but who are able to use a range of coping styles involving social connection to relieve their distress. This fits well with the idea of blogging providing a space for emotional outlet, to connect with others, and to seek support.^12–14

High scorers on Connected Blogging tended to be less stressed and depressed, more satisfied with friendships, in receipt of more comments from others, and have more subscribers and readers to their blogs. Connected Blogging was also positively related to most of the social provisions scales and negatively associated with the maladaptive coping technique of denial, suggesting that these bloggers utilize their blogs to connect and communicate with others rather than solve emotional problems. Their highly interactive blogs appear to enhance friendship networks in a range of ways, as suggested in previous research,^6,7,13,15 beyond just seeking assistance for problems and stresses as in the case of the therapeutic bloggers.

The Self-Censoring style also blogs to communicate, but those scoring high on this subscale focus on positive portrayal and self-presentation, ¹⁴ rather than a more open style of communication usually favored among friendship groups. Items in the Self-Censoring Blogging subscale on face value suggest the restriction of emotional expression and caution in sharing personal information. This was supported by correlations demonstrating fewer blog posts, lower negative affect, and less emotional and instrumental support seeking. Self-Censoring bloggers were also less likely to share feelings by venting, or using other coping mechanisms such as acceptance, self-blame, planning, and positive reframing. Thus the Self-Censoring style appears focused on substantial positive identity construction and impression management in line with observations by Nardi et al. ¹² and Jacobs ¹⁴ that many bloggers utilize significant self-censorship and self-presentation strategies when authoring their blogs.

Items comprising the Substitution Blogging subscale suggest a strong focus on interaction with others through the blog. Those high on this subscale appear to use their blogs to substitute for, rather than enhance, face-to-face friendships and social networks. This type of blogging may be characteristic of authors using the Internet to overcome face-to-face loneliness or social anxiety. ²⁶ Indeed, the correlations suggest that substitution bloggers were relatively dissatisfied with the number of and closeness with face-to-face friends, yet despite these face-to-face deficits, tended to have higher numbers of blog subscribers and readers. Thus while substitution bloggers may be dissatisfied with their offline relationships, their focus on feedback from others and readership appears to be successful, as those scoring high on this blogging style report a higher number subscribers and comments from their readership. There were no significant correlations of the style with mood or coping strategies, indicating that substitution bloggers were no more or less likely than others to be stressed or use particular styles of coping.

The four blogging styles fit well with the initial hypotheses. As predicted, the more socially oriented connected style of blogging correlated with measures of friendship quality and perceived social support. Substitution bloggers appeared to be successfully utilizing their blog to compensate for face-to-face deficits. Likewise, the more cathartic therapeutic style correlated with active coping strategies to deal with higher levels of emotional distress. No predictions were made regarding self-censorship, but this style appears to fit well with the self-presentation focused blogger described by Nardi et al. ¹² and Jacobs, ¹⁴ or alternatively with the “lurking” bloggers described by IP and Wagner ²⁷ who are more focused on reading other blogs than posting their own.

In the current research, females were more likely to use a therapeutic style of blogging, and males more likely to be self-censoring or substitution-style bloggers. While some research has suggested that sex has little effect on the content of blogs,^28,29 other studies show women to be more focused on writing about personal life ³⁰ and socialising ³¹ than men, ³² including greater use of emoticons^33,34 and diary-type blogs. ³⁵ Past research has also suggested that personal journal blogs can be therapeutic in reducing emotional distress and increasing social provisions.^6,7 Thus the relationship between gender and Therapeutic Blogging style may be a consequence of more interpersonal content and motivation. Males were more likely to use blogging as substitution for face-to-face friendship, which may be evident of a problem-focused method of coping with social deficits where male bloggers concentrate on creating positive social and professional online connections.

Older bloggers were more likely to blog in a connected style. Research on older bloggers is still somewhat unclear, perhaps because most blogs are created by young adults. ²⁹ Schler et al. ³⁰ found that older bloggers were more likely to post blogs topical in content and containing hyperlinks, while in partial contrast, Fullwood et al. ³ found older bloggers more likely to post negatively toned blogs. In the present study, older bloggers were more inclined to use their blogs to communicate with others, and experience their blogs as topical extensions of their normal interests and conversations.

This initial study into blogging styles illustrated that there are indeed different styles with which individuals interpret their blogging experience, and these different dimensions can overlap for individual bloggers, as seen by intercorrelations between styles. Just as blogs can change in content and style from post to post, ³⁶ it makes sense that blog authors can experience their blog in different ways at different times depending on their mood, commentary, feedback, and other relevant factors. Still, the simple structures of each factor and moderate to high internal reliabilities suggest that the subscales are suitable to be used individually or in combination to assess the different ways in which bloggers may experience their blogs.

Conclusion

The primary and secondary factor analysis resulted in four independent subscales for the PBSS that describe relatively unique styles of blogging. The blogging scales demonstrated high face validity as evidenced by the relationships between their items, good construct validity as seen in their correlations with relevant constructs, and adequate reliability. Bloggers can be profiled on the four subscales to assess the relatively strength of each style. The present study is limited by its focus on social and emotional experiences, and its small sample size. Future research could examine further validity evidence for the PBSS in a larger sample.