With a click of a button, Professor Hancock can delete your existence from this blog and give you a 0 for 40% of your grade in this class. This was one rule he made clear from the day one, “be courteous and respectful to your peers,” (Hancock) the end. For the first time in my school years, I am instructed to write weekly assignments on a blog, something I had never done before. The types of blogs are endless and include blogs about travel, sports, politics, games, celebrities, laws, and much more. If you name it, it’s a blog. However, for this class, our blogs are constricted to the assignments given and have to be composed according to a set of rules dictated by our Professor. According to Patricia Wallace in The Psychology of the Internet, Professor Hancock is therefore the Leviathan or the intermediary or authority figure keeping us students in line.
On the first day of classes, Professor Hancock gave us a list of instructions for how to sign onto the blog and explained that each week he would post an assignment that we would respond to on this very blog you are reading. He also gave us instructions giving us a range for how many words our posts and comments are allowed to be. However, his authority lies in the ground rules he set. These include that “absolutely no profane or blatantly antagonistic posts will be tolerated. Disrespectful posts will result in the loss of all credit towards the assignments . . . at the discretion of the instructor” (Hancock). The rules are that we are strictly confined to providing positive critiques and commentary, no ifs, ands, or buts. With the threat of an automatic 0 for 40% of our grade for breaking these rules, the class listened fast.
Therefore, according to Wallace, Hancock is the Leviathan censoring and overseeing the blog. This is a very important thing to have on these blogs because it is important that as students, we can feel comfortable sharing our ideas and experiences with one another without worrying that we will get made fun of or be insulted. Having this Leviathan, allows us to “build a framework of trust and establish means to ensure compliance with, at the very least, netiquette” (Wallace, 1999). Although as members of the blog, we are giving up certain freedoms and rights to say what we want, it is the only way to achieve this order online. As the Leviathan, Hancock has set the tone of the blog allowing him to promote this constructive online group atmosphere to become our very own positive “virtual coffee shop” (Wallace, 1999).
Wallace, P. (1999). The psychology of the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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5 comments:
Jillian,
That's very true; the professor and TAs are the leviathans for this blog.
It’s interesting that the punishment for violating the norms of this blog involves a lowered class grade. I wonder whether this blog will continue to exist after our class ends, and if so, how the leviathans will be able to continue monitoring that users uphold the norms once the system of reproach has been removed. I suppose it would function similar to blogs in which a class grade does not depend upon respectable and relevant posts. In this case, blog administrators function as leviathans who threaten users with removal from the blog should they violate any norms.
Jillian,
I like the way you applied this assignment to a situation that we can all relate to. I agree with your description of how the Leviathan (Hancock and the TAs) enforce this blog’s norm of posting respectful blog comments. I think it is important to emphasize that the intention of these rules are to be courteous and respectful to our peers, as you mentioned. Being as all the bloggers are COMM245 students, I believe this gives us a sense of cohesiveness in itself. Furthermore, the fact that we are all contributors to the Red Blog further divides us into a group which we can feel attached too—after all, this is where we post and read each others blogs each week. Each of us are motivated to stick to the norms not only because we do not want to receive a grade penalty, but also because we want to continue feeling a sense of group identity and be accepted by the other bloggers. I like that you mentioned how Hancock’s role as the Leviathan enables us to build a framework of trust where we can feel comfortable sharing our ideas without worrying about being made fun of. I wonder if this framework of trust would have been built naturally had these rules not been enforced.
Jillian,
Your post is very interesting. It's true that Professor Hancock and the TA's in this blog are the Leviathans. Nice job on relating our class to the theories we're learning about.
I still remember Professor Hancock's rules from the first lecture. He made himself clear, letting us know that we cannot use any profanity or criticize other's blogs but provide positive feedback and suggest other ideas. The funny/scary thing is he reinforced his statements by letting us know that he will lower our grades for breaking the rules. Although, these set rules are all understandable because it's important for students to respect each other. In this case, we're all in the same class and we are all in the Red blog together. We already have developed a form of group identity since day 1 and we are all expected to follow the rules that have been set for us.
Hey Jillian! I really enjoyed your post and thought you applied the concepts concerning the Leviathan in a unique way. I had never thought of Professor Hancock and the TAs as the Leviathan of this blog before, but you are completely right.
I think what makes this application of the Leviathan interesting is that this Leviathan successfully functions because of possible consequences to circumventing its rules. Rather than the Leviathan working because we give it the authority to, Professor Hancock establishes and retains the power himself.
Jillian,
Your approach to the Leviathan was very interesting! I never thought of Professor Hancock and the TAs as our blog Leviathan but this is certainly a great example to demonstrate the Wallace's concept. I think you do a good job of explaining the different rules we must follow as members of the blog and why it is necessary to have a Leviathan in this case. You quotes from Wallace added to your description.
I think that having a Leviathan in our blog is great to serve as check that everyone is being courteous. This is my first time using a blog and I wonder if there are Leviathans on other blogs that are not for a class. If a person is inappropriate, do other people in the blog reprimand their actions enforcing the social norm of courtesy? This would certainly be an interesting topic to explore.
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